Always On!

Final Thoughts on Always On

 

In the last chapter, "The People We Become", Baron discusses consequences of being "always on" in a networked and mobile world. The truth is we live in an age of vast information that is easily disseminated--through e-mail, IMs, blogs, personal web pages, texts...we rely so heavily on these technologies that there are major cognitive, personal, and social consequences. 

 

Baron holds that cognitive consequences include reduced productivity when it comes to multi-tasking. Online access and telecommunications has proven to be a huge distraction--both in school and work settings. Workers and students alike wind up spending unnecessary time browsing the web when they should be engaged in their work. After being interrupted by an email, text, or IM alert while working, people often have a hard time getting back to work. Personally, I, myself, find that I waste so much time checking my e-mail, browsing web sites, and calling/texting friends when I SHOULD be doing something as productive as school work. I've come to the realization that I could complete my school work so much earlier if it weren't for these distractions! When I spend a good, solid two hours working diligently on a paper or doing some class reading, I find it particularly rewarding to take a study break and go online...Sure, my "study break" should be about 15 minutes, but I find myself so immersed in, for example, the youtube video I'm watching, I completely lose track of time, and by the time I actually get back to work, it's about an hour later. So much for a study break....

 

 

But it's clearly easy to see how our attention can be so easily diverted from one thing to another, especially where distractions like the internet is involved. I think this is something many people can attest to.

 

When it comes to personal and social consequences, there are far too many to mention. It's definitely part of the human condition to maintain social contact; phones and the internet are the perfect tools for doing so. Baron mentions that people don't want to be alone, naturally, so we find outlets online to fill that void...people log onto AIM, facebook, myspace, for example. The goal, of course, it to satisfy that craving for social interaction, but how genuine and authentic can it truly be online? Online use, especially, can have adverse effects on social skills. People go online to talk, so they won't feel alone, but paradoxically, they are only reinforcing feelings of loneliness and alienation. Real life social interaction can't be done and social skills just can't be practiced if countless of hours are spent lounging around your room and talking to people online. 

Countless teenagers find solace in online chat rooms where they can "make friends"--people with whom they can talk/chat, people who "understand" them. The danger of this, of course, is that such "friends" can turn out to be online predators. Yet even so, how can complete strangers actually be called friends? Go out and make real friends is what I have to say...flesh-and-blood people who can truly be called friends, with real things to say, who can really understand and "be there" in your time of need. 

(Since we're on the topic of "online friends", I'm reminded of facebook and people who brag about having 12,000 "facebook friends", so-called "friends" who they've never seen or heard of before). 

People also oftentimes take the careful time to package their online identities--which may not always be accurate. In any case, it's easy for people to cower behind their computer screens and muster the courage to say things they'd never say in person. But the consequence of spending so much social interaction online is that it detracts from REAL interaction. Sure, maybe people are more bold on AIM or on a text message, but in doing so, they never gain real, legitimate, practical social and personable skills. 

Take flirting for instance. It always annoys me when I hear that someone I know is flirting with someone else through texts or IMs...how real is that? If you really want to flirt with someone, do it in person. It's more meaningful and genuine. I once had a friend who met someone online, and for about one month, they were corresponding through emails, texts, and phone calls. Here's the funny thing--when they actually met IN PERSON--one month later, whatever relationship they had established through texts, emails, and phone calls very rapidly disintegrated. They went on two dates, and that was it. The virtual persona/alter ego they had created had resulted in a skewed image of each other...a lie almost. When they finally confronted the "real" person, well, they were pretty much disappointed. 

All of what was just previously discussed leads to the fact that online (and mobile) interaction takes away the most important factor of human interaction--face-to-face contact. Actual flesh-and-blood encounters generally captures something so much more meaningful and intimate that online encounters NEVER can. 

 

 

In this day and age, we are herded into a landscape where we are increasingly available as communication targets and we incessantly strategize how to control social contact. Personally, I never realized how much I rely on my phone on a daily basis. I call/text friends to find out where they are, what they're doing, what time they can meet up for lunch or to study. Were it not for my phone, I would be completely in the dark...how would I ever find where my friends are so that we can, in fact, meet up? It's also amazing to think how much time is saved by calling/texting a friend...you can easily pick up the phone and in a split second find out that your friend is in the dining hall. Without a phone, you could easily spend an entire day tracking that friend down on campus. Obviously there's a huge convenience factor involved with mobile devices, and since we're always on the go with our very busy schedules, it works out perfectly. 

 

Yet Baron also mentioned that because we are always connected, no matter where we are or what we're doing, or who we're with...we can almost always get a hold of someone, one way or another...be it through a simple phone call, a text, an email, or an IM. This makes it particularly easy for parents to keep track of their kids, or for a couple to be in constant contact with each other. But constant availability isn't necessarily a good thing. Why? Because being "always on" removes a feeling of anticipation. Baron brought up a proverb, "absence makes the heart grow fonder." Parents may lose sight of their kids who are thousands of miles away in college, but when mom decides to call you to catch up, does the sound of your voice compensate for your physical absence? Information communication technologies allows us to be permanently connected, so we can always get up-to-date information on our friends and family. This definitely has its benefits, but I also feel that there's just something incomparably exciting about waiting a year before seeing a best friend or family member. You can spend all hours of the night catching them up, enjoying the other's presence after such a long separation, and this act in itself, I think, is so much more meaningful. Nowadays, however, we have computers and cell phones that would most probably never let that happen. 

 

From all these consequences I just mentioned, it's easy to understand why and how Baron thinks online and mobile technologies are undermining our social fabric. But, according to Baron, it's also undermining our language. As a result of being "always on", we're now seeing degradation in English. IMs and texts are great sources to investigate this phenomenon. I partly think that because texts are character-limited, people find ways to abbreviate words so they can express an entire thought in a single message. It actually struck me when I read that students are using internet lingo, abbreviations, and truncated versions of words in their school work! In all honesty, I have to admit that I am SOMETIMES guilty of the same crime...when I'm taking notes for a very fast-paced lecture class, I'll abbreviate words like "before", "to",  "too", "see", "be" and "you" as b4, 2, c, b, and u. Sometimes, I'll represent "later" as "l8r"--a combination of letters AND numbers (I don't remember where I learned that from, I just thought it was pretty creative when I first saw it).  I'm seeing these abbreviations more and more often online and in texts, and they're taking the world by storm. I say "world" because in Spanish, I've seen "que" represented phonetically as "ke" in texts and IM's. I was even surprised when my own mom texted me with these abbreviations...I'm guessing she learned them from my younger brother. I suppose when older generations are adopting the same lazy use of language as their kids, it's no wonder scholars think language is going down the drain as a result of mobile and online communication.