Is New Technology Making Us Inattentive?

Giotta surveyed students, "many of whom express anxiety about their evolving relationship with-and growing reliance on-new technologies such as Smartphones, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter." (Giotta, 2018) There appears to be a cultural shift in the amount of noise we are surrounded by.  We are constantly immersed in what is happening online.  Larry Rosen a professor at the University of California State agrees.  "He believes that technology has forced us to pay less attention to our real world communication and more to online communication." (Penn State University)

With new technology we can benefit from greater-arguably endless-access to culture but this might be causing us more harm, "with this sense of cultural enrichment and depth comes a feeling of information overload and the need to filter out the noise." (Kutchinsky, 2014) We feel the need to respond to people immediately, and expect the same in return. With those immediate responses comes not truly thinking about the response in the first place.  We need to take a break, breathe, and live in the "actual" moment.

References

@chairulfajar_ Unsplash image. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/wR5u40w3GMw

Giotta, G. (2018). Teaching technological determinism and social construction of technology using everyday objects. Communication Teacher, 32(3), 136–140. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1080/17404622.2017.1372589

Harli, M. Unsplash image. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/n7a2OJDSZns

Kutchinsky, S. (2014). Has Technology Changes our Cultural Taste? The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/2014/oct/31/-sp-technology-cultural-taste-youtube-vloggers-vice

Penn State University. (2015). Science in our World: Certainty and Controversy. Penn State University. Retrieved from

https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/16/is-technology-really-making-us-less-social/

Has New Media Made us More Social?

Some critics believe that technology is bringing us closer together.

Keith Hampton a professor at Rutgers University states the following.  "He has studied his students and colleagues and found that students have many more close relationships because of their cellphones and media usage than the older colleagues." (Penn State University, 2015) If we examine the picture above we may think the opposite, but, what if the people in these photos are communicating with family or friends while waiting for the bus?

Now we can look at this picture.  The individuals in this photo are definitely not communicating with anyone.  Not that it's bad that they are catching up on the news, the point is that reading the news isn't communicating is collecting information.  "The printing press, newspapers, paperbacks and television were all once denounced as threats to consumers' brainpower and moral fibre." (Kutchinsky, 2014, image from article)

What do you think?  The jury is still out on this one.

References

Kutchinsky, S. (2014). Has Technology Changed Cultural Taste? The Guardian. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/2014/oct/31/-sp-technology-cultural-taste-youtube-vloggers-vice

Penn State University. (2015). Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy. Penn State University. Retrieved from 

https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/16/is-technology-really-making-us-less-social/

Rawpixel image Retrieved from Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/nZeQKa625vM

Twitter Effect

"According to the Pew Research Center, 62% of U.S. adults get their news on social media." (Ott, 2017) What this means is that the audience can choose the base that they want to gather news from and receive a one-sided view of the news.
In the opinion of Ott, "Twitter infects public discourse like a social cancer." (Ott, 2017) This can be true with many platforms of new media as the proliferation of media is exponential with new technology.

An audience can choose who they get their news from, "technology has empowered audiences to take control of conversations and the messaging directed at them." (Hall, 2017) This has shaped how our culture is collecting and sharing the news.  One must not always trust what the see on new media as it may not be a full and complete picture of the entire landscape.

References

Hall, J. (2017). From TV to Digital Media: How Technology Changes Content Development. Forbes. Retrieved from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2017/03/07/from-tv-to-digital-media-how-technology-changes-content-development/#24702846517a

Ott, B. (2017). The Age of Twitter: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of Debasement. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 34(1), 59–68. Retrieved from https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1080/15295036.2016.1266686

Kurfe, S. Unsplash image retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/6lcT2kRPvnI