The influence of the Internet has caused a change in the way we communicate, learn and shop.
The Internet is probably most famous for the ability to spread information, real or fictitious. Before we were limited to the news editors of a local newspaper, then national cable news. Now anyone can search the world, visit local newspapers in foreign countries, and see opinions from all sides. This ease of information has also brought with it a host of hoaxes, money schemes, and fallacies.
There is no doubt that easy access to the Internet, like the introduction of the mail service and the invention of the telephone, has changed the nature of people’s connection to others in their social world. The mail made connections possible between people without physical proximity, and the telephone facilitated communication between distant people, enabling fast connections over long distances.
But has this communication revolution changed the sheer nature of interpersonal and group processes?
On the one hand, since the main use of the Internet is communication, some people might speculate that the Internet will have positive social consequences in people’s daily lives because it increases the frequency and quality of interpersonal communications between people. People with easy access to others would feel better connected to and more supported by others, leading to happiness and engagement with families, organizations, communities, and society at large.
But, on the other hand, the ease of electronic communication can lead to weaker social ties, because people have fewer reasons to leave their homes and interact face-to-face with other people. The Internet makes it easier for people to work from home, form and maintain friendships and even romantic ties from home, bank from home, vote, and engage in political and social discussions with others (from home).
In these variety of ways, Internet communications can potentially displace face-to-face communications. I think this point is important because psychologists in much research have described and tested such face-to-face and telephone connections as being of higher quality, when viewed in terms of their contribution to satisfaction and well-being.
By reading a number of longitudinal and experimental studies (e.g., McKenna, Green, and Gleason) testing a theory of Internet relationship formation, these researchers directly address the argument that the psychological quality of Internet social interaction is less than psychological quality. traditional face-to-face interaction.
Consider my own usage. I have received several emails in the last hour. My boyfriend confirms dinner for tonight. Despite the fact that it is the weekend, my classmates send me questions about the pending exam, expect a quick response. So does a graduate student from Europe, who I recently put on “MySpace” with an urgent request for a letter of recommendation. My friend Ksenija sends me an IM to tell me the latest news about her new love. And so on and so on…
I guess I’m also living a virtual life, and what’s most interesting of all, all my friends online are also my friends in real life. And if they were not in the past, I somehow managed to bring my cyber friends into my real life, so that here in my real life I could allow real communication, real face-to-face “chats”, real exchange of emotions. , feelings of happiness, satisfaction and well-being. I would say that for me the Internet is a great new way of doing old things.
So what other conclusion can I bring except that life on the Internet cannot sustain itself without real life communication? It’s simple: if we understand the qualities of face-to-face communication that influence the impact of face-to-face communication on people and their social interaction, we could predict the likely influence of any new communication technology. However, researchers show that sooner or later people convert their online contacts to more traditional face-to-face contacts, just like I did. People use the Internet, in other words, to help them achieve their real-life goals. And instead of technology changing people’s social and psychological reality, in other words, people change their use of technology to facilitate the creation of a desired social reality.
Internet users need to closely examine their behavior to ensure that excessive time spent online does not negatively affect their personal well-being. We shouldn’t throw our computers out the window, but we shouldn’t blindly carry our total dependence on the Internet either. As with many things in life, it seems that moderation and balance are the key to maximizing the positive effect of the Internet.