Is technology holding back our interpersonal skills?

[Mouthwash]

I don't have much to say on this topic because I don't know a lot about it. However, I'd like to ask some of you if you think technology-mediated communication is causing this, although perhaps technology isn't the cause but the effect (or some combination thereof)?

Technology doesn't solely drive social trends but I think it could have very dangerous effects as computers get more advanced (to the point where lying becomes impossible due to face-analyzing technology, people find artificial worlds more enticing than real life and can't connect to real life, etc). I would also like to point out that technological progress is and has always been driven by demand, not what necessarily is good for people.

Thoughts?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I think this is best understood when seen as part of a bigger picture. A picture brought about by the rise of faked worlds and "unnatural" societies.

We live in a world full of "faked" worlds. Or in other words, we don't only live in the existential world. That is the world which happens right before your eyes. Which you can feel with all your senses.
Earlier, more primitive societies did only live in the existential world. It was all which was offered and all taken.
The first step towards faked worlds was writing. It laid the seed for worlds not existential but merely imagined and which can be cultivated and passed on removed from the boundaries of the existential world. In contrast to that, story telling - while also about a faked world in the strict sense - is tightly bound to the existential world. Because you need a guy you can feel with all your sense in front of you telling the story.
The next big step was the rise of other media.
And today, faked worlds are everywhere. Books and games, magazines, TV, movies and of course the Internet (and OT). If one chooses, one can have minimal contact with the existential world and live ones life in faked worlds almost entirely.

However, those faked worlds are probably best understood as the mere tools which allow us to remove ourselves from the existential world. That we also actually do so must IMO also be explained by the design of modern societies. Which are incredibly strange and hostile when compared to the natural environment of a tribe, where one is naturally integrated into a completely and thoroughly familiar social environment. If one is willing and able to nurture social contacts, one can establish some kind of modern sub-cell of a personally tailored tribe. Family, friends, partners. But the inherently alien character of modern societies and the temptations/distractions of faked worlds can get in the way of that.

 

[Mouthwash]

I think this is best understood when seen as part of a bigger picture. A picture brought about by the rise of faked worlds and "unnatural" societies.

We live in a world full of "faked" worlds. Or in other words, we don't only live in the existential world. That is the world which happens right before your eyes. Which you can feel with all your senses.
Earlier, more primitive societies did only live in the existential world. It was all which was offered and all taken.
The first step towards faked worlds was writing. It laid the seed for worlds not existential but merely imagined and which can be cultivated and passed on removed from the boundaries of the existential world. In contrast to that, story telling - while also about a faked world in the strict sense - is tightly bound to the existential world. Because you need a guy you can feel with all your sense in front of you telling the story.
The next big step was the rise of other media.
And today, faked worlds are everywhere. Books and games, magazines, TV, movies and of course the Internet (and OT). If one chooses, one can have minimal contact with the existential world and live ones life in faked worlds almost entirely.

However, those faked worlds are probably best understood as the mere tools which allow us to remove ourselves from the existential world. That we also actually do so must IMO also be explained by the design of modern societies. Which are incredibly strange and hostile when compared to the natural environment of a tribe, where one is naturally integrated into a completely and thoroughly familiar social environment. If one is willing and able to nurture social contacts, one can establish some kind of modern sub-cell of a personally tailored tribe. Family, friends, partners. But the inherently alien character of modern societies and the temptations/distractions of faked worlds can get in the way of that.

Reminds me of Nietzsche's ideas on art.

 

[Synobun]

Any shortcoming in our children is caused by us and not the technology we use. If you give your child a TV and iPhone to deal with their problems from a young age and expose them willingly to things like Cosmo Magazine, it's only inevitable that your child will lack necessary skills for coping and will inherently be unsuitable for life as a rational, mature human being.

Blame the educator, not the tool.

 

[Mouthwash]

Any shortcoming in our children is caused by us and not the technology we use. If you give your child a TV and iPhone to deal with their problems from a young age and expose them willingly to things like Cosmo Magazine, it's only inevitable that your child will lack necessary skills for coping and will inherently be unsuitable for life as a rational, mature human being.

Blame the educator, not the tool.

So you're a believer in, "let the world go to hell because the people dragging it there deserve it?"

 

[Phrossack]

I strongly agree with SiLL. We choose to live in fake worlds, which can be alienating because people aren't really "designed" for that, so to speak.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The first step towards faked worlds was writing.

Nope. It wasn't writing - it was storytelling, in the sense of oral histories, bardic circles, poetry recitations, and what the local shamans and priests told people was the truth of how the world worked.

Writing came later.


To answer the question, yes, I think technology is retarding our social skills. I find my own social skills becoming less than they were, and sometimes that's a scary thought. Even writing a letter by hand, something I used to enjoy and was good at, seems too much like work nowadays. It's so inconvenient to find a piece of paper, write a neat letter with something of interest in it, then go to the post office (I'd have to look on a map to find the nearest one, since our downtown post office was closed decades ago), buy a stamp (or a pre-stamped envelope since it seems silly to buy whole books/packages of things it would take me years to use up at the rate I use snail mail these days), and mail it. Then wonder how long it would take to arrive (if it did), and if the recipient would bother reading it, would bother to reply, etc.

Damn, I've gotten lazy.

BTW, to those taking part in the camera project: I mentioned this to the people in my "Felines & Friends" group on Care2, and they think it's a really wonderful idea. They've asked me to let them know how it all turns out when contre gets the camera back.

 

[Kozmos]

Retarding? No. They just become different. People just hate change for the most part unless it is objectively a huge improvement.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Reminds me of Nietzsche's ideas on art.

I wouldn't know

story telling - while also about a faked world in the strict sense

Nope. It wasn't writing - it was storytelling, in the sense of oral histories, bardic circles, poetry recitations, and what the local shamans and priests told people was the truth of how the world worked.

Writing came later.

And in any case, we may just as well say that art was the first faked world. But that just would miss the point.

 

[Synobun]

So you're a believer in, "let the world go to hell because the people dragging it there deserve it?"

I have no remote idea on how you got that out of what I said.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Know thy off button

 

[AdamCrock]

Retarding? No. They just become different. People just hate change for the most part unless it is objectively a huge improvement.

Some say that no news is a good news but I would certainly like the mathematical power fed into my brain by mind-machine interface I mean what is life ? It's just the data fed into the computer of the mind

 

[Mouthwash]

To answer the question, yes, I think technology is retarding our social skills. I find my own social skills becoming less than they were, and sometimes that's a scary thought. Even writing a letter by hand, something I used to enjoy and was good at, seems too much like work nowadays. It's so inconvenient to find a piece of paper, write a neat letter with something of interest in it, then go to the post office (I'd have to look on a map to find the nearest one, since our downtown post office was closed decades ago), buy a stamp (or a pre-stamped envelope since it seems silly to buy whole books/packages of things it would take me years to use up at the rate I use snail mail these days), and mail it. Then wonder how long it would take to arrive (if it did), and if the recipient would bother reading it, would bother to reply, etc.

Damn, I've gotten lazy.

What does this all have to do with social skills? This is a good thing. We don't hunt and gather or use snail mail anymore. Luxuries become necessities. That's the way technological progress has always worked.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So you're a believer in, "let the world go to hell because the people dragging it there deserve it?"

And here I thought the Chamber was largely meant to be a 'troll free' forum.

Retarding? No. They just become different. People just hate change for the most part unless it is objectively a huge improvement.

This

 

[Mouthwash]

And here I thought the Chamber was largely meant to be a 'troll free' forum.

God, can't I do ANYTHING on these forums without being called a troll by forum dust-balls?

He blamed the educators and parents. So? You can't change the fact that people are stupid and incompetent.

This.

I'm beginning to think you're trolling. Sure, humans change, but not all of those changes are good. Didn't I say this in the OP?

 

[Synobun]

He blamed the educators and parents. So? You can't change the fact that people are stupid and incompetent.

Actually, you can.

It's called education.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I have no remote idea on how you got that out of what I said.

Actually I read you exactly the same. A hyperbole for sure, but illustrative.

 

[Synobun]

Actually I read you exactly the same. A hyperbole for sure, but illustrative.

That's fine that you read me the same as Mouthwash, but I'm not interested in a public polling of who agrees, but rather how he got to that conclusion.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I really is very easy. Your reasoning was: Parents are responsible to educate kids. If they don't do so sufficnetly, their fault. That's it. And fault clearly implies to deserve the consequences.
So in a general and hyperbole manner you said:
People can not drag the world to hell if they choose. If they choose to do so anyway, let it go to hell (because they deserve it).

See, that you even in one instance deny any further argument legitimacy as it is about what people deserve for they are responsible can only be explained by accepting the line of thought Mouthwash suggest you embraced. Unless you only embrace it in this instance, but that would be rather arbitrary.
The reason such an attitude is troublesome is because it makes no sense to view individuals as isolated beings who are responsible for everything (really, individualism makes from the bird perspective no sense, only from the single perspective, but if we talk about society-wide developments, we naturally are birds), nor is it a realistic picture of the human condition that surely they can deal with it all no matter the circumstances.

 

[Synobun]

The only people who are saying that they deserve it is you and Mouthwash. At no point did I say that the world deserved to burn because people failed to educate properly. At no point did I say that individuals were isolated and were responsible for everything. These are all fabrications you have designed yourself.

I cannot argue against a fabrication.