Social Progress

If there is one thing that technology has done for human society, it’s that it has allowed a new wave of communication and social progress. This new wave of online communication has allowed people from all over the world to connect with one another and meet people they would have never met before. On the flip side, this has also created a dependency as well as a new form of danger that we need to protect ourselves from.

Before we had online communication, also known as social networking sites, communication was limited as well as the speed of news travel. Now that we have sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Blogger, Tumblr, ect families or acquaintances can connect on the internet.Brothers meet on Facebook . As you can see through the link people who have not seen each other since birth can meet on these sites. Another positive about this is that people can speak to other people from around the world. One of my personal experiences with this is when I took a trip to Europe my junior year in high school. My phone was not able to work so I went into an internet cafe to log onto my email and Myspace. With the help on the internet and online communication, I was able to speak to my mom as well as other family members without the use of my cell phone. Now there are applications such as Skype, Oovoo and other video communication with the help of Wi-Fi in which you can see the counter part you are speaking to.

On the other side the internet and online communication has made us dependent as well as created another form of danger to protect ourselves from. Some people can not go without the use of the internet for more than a day and thus they have named a disorder after those people. http://allpsych.com/journal/internetaddiction.html . We as a society have created a new drug for those to get high on, even though it started out as a useful product. As seen in the movie WALL-E technology has made us dependent upon the items we use. We will eventually turn into people who don't know how to do anything for ourselves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9s7afoYI-M. When I was in school we learned how to write letters. Now, when i asked my little cousin if they write letters in school, they don't even teach these basic skills. Another negative about the internet is cyberbullying, a danger that we must protect people from. Now people can send others messages without the receiver knowing who it is. This way people can make threats and other unnecessary statements without being found or without the. These actions can lead to depression which has lead to the death of some. Teens Cyberbullying Death.

All in all online communication has been a double edged sword for society. It has many positives that we benefit from heavily as well as many negatives that we must be aware of for the sake of our society. The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people  (Karl Marx). If we as a society can learn to balance the positives and negatives then we continue to produce useful things and not turn into useless people.