Technology and Social Skills

Not long ago people took the time to get to know a person whom he or she had just met. In years past, for a person to claim he or she had a relationship they would invest time in building that relationship. Years ago when people spent time together they paid attention to those they were with, they socialized and interacted with other human beings in a real life environment. The technology today has provided many ways to interact with others via cell phones; computers and PDA’s, just to name a few. With all this technology, it seems as though the true social interaction between people has started to disappear. This technology allows people to interact more but has it made us less sociable? The interaction is taking place in separate rooms, states and even countries, but not together. Is this true interaction?
Social interaction is vital to our physical and mental health and it has been proven that maintaining healthy relationships help us to live longer. It is becoming more common for people to socialize via simulated means, internet, texting, and chat rooms to name a few, and ultimately replacing a part of human behavior that is vital for society to function. A second grade teacher of 20 years is shocked when her students do not know what to do when the time comes for recess. AIM, a feature from AOL, encourages the butchering of the English language with abbreviations such as LOL, (lots of laughs), and IDK, (I don’t know). The incentive for going out to make friends has disappeared because of the idea of hundreds of friends on Facebook and MySpace (Knapp, 2008).
The dating world has also been completely turned upside-down. Just a couple decades ago chivalrous romance was the way to go about finding a date. Today one would send a friend request on facebook and the prospective date would look at the online profile to see if he or she would be interested. I must admit that I have fallen victim to these new ways of dating and technology but not to the end of