Effects of technology on interaction
Adolescence is a stage in life that marks a transition from childhood to adulthood. It is generally referred to as the life’s second decade. The age bracket for this stage ranges from 10-23 years. Early adolescent begins from 10-13 years, mid-adolescence starts from 14 to 18 years and finally, late adolescence starts from 19 to around 23 years. One can fall in any of the three phases of adolescence and undergo all the experiences before growing to an adult.
With the advancement in the use of technology, adolescents are seen to be the largest numbers of users. Use of devices like cell phones, computers, iPods, and other forms of communication have been adopted by many adolescents because it makes then in contact with their parents, friends, or siblings regardless of the distance
Adolescents have therefore spent most of their time using these machines and are seen as a risk that may lead to loss of human interactions, which leads to development of physical relationships. Use of such machines to communicate with parents for example may result into low quality attachment to parents. For an adolescent’s development and health, a good teen-parent relationship is very important.
Most teens have however, enhanced their relationship with other teens other than with their parents. Use of computers, phones, and iPods has led to cheap and quick communication. Adolescents have however opted to text messaging using cell phones. It is said to be more efficient and cheap as most of the adolescents are students. One receives and send up to twenty text messages a day.
In my study, I managed to visit two public places where several teens were present, my first visit was to a teen hang out, here I met many of them who used cell phones, I walked around keenly listening to their conversations. Allan, a male adolescent of around 17 years was talking to his friend whom they last met 4 months ago.
Although he looked so much into stories outside himself, he was stern on his decision on the career he had chosen. His father’s effort to make him pursue engineering had fallen into deaf ears. He had decided to pursue education and was contented with his decision. This was however, a behavior I noted in him. At his age, he had to choose what he wanted to be in life. Allan didn’t know what the future held in store for him but he had made a decision.
According to Erickson’s stage of development, an adolescent is at a point of confusion, one tries to know his role in the society, tries to get self-identity and his future. At the end of this stage, one will have had an established identity and many life decisions have been made, relating this to Allan’s character and behavior, he is seen to have undergone this stage, he is in late adolescent stage and his destiny is already set. He has shown his ability to define what he wants in life.
On the other hand, Piaget’s view of adolescent development entails transition of thinking ability from concrete to abstract. One can be able to imagine the possibility of something that does not exist at the moment to exist in the future. Other than this, the egocentric thoughts that were outstanding in their childhood stages now begin to decrease.
Allan therefore fully fits into this stage; he is able to think of what he can make in future by pursuing education rather than engineering now. He views his feelings and thoughts about his future life as experiences, which are unique, and no one was to change his mind about it. Piaget says that it is at this stage that many conflicts between parents and their children are experienced. A conflict in ideologies is experienced when his father tries to convince him into a different career.
I also managed to visit a restaurant where I sat behind Jane, a 15 year-old lady. From this point, I could see that Jane was busy in a serious discussion with her choirmaster using her notebook laptop. From their conversations, I could realize that there was an upcoming choir competition, which was to be held in a month’s time, rehearsals had started and the required number of participants had not been met, the question of interest was. How will we meet the target?
This was a big challenge that the two had to come up with a working solution. At the age of only 15, Jane was facing a challenge she had to urgently come up with a working solution and participate in the festival or just stay out of it. The choirmaster was of the opinion that they just stay out of it. This was not the best idea and Jane was determined that a solution will be obtained. She made a wise decision of requesting young parents to participate in the church choir.
She was not ready to give up in this and her idea showed her dedication to religious activities. From her words, it was evident that she had a lot of faith; she looked determined and was ready to make a sacrifice of anything to ensure that everything came out successfully. This was an idea that the choirmaster was not able to come up with, relating Jane’s situation to Piaget’s view on adolescent development, Jane is a typical adolescent who has got the best understanding of religion and is seen to be more idealistic and can think logically and provide solutions. Similarly, according to Erikson's stage of development, Jane an adolescent has a strong association with religious activities, it is at this stage that the interest are pulled towards activities that bring people together.
In conclusion, I can draw that technology has brought a big gap in human interactions. People have opted to interact behind barriers and avoided face-to –face interactions. Human are social beings and the need for physical interaction is very important in growth and development. It’s not only the children who need parental closeness in their growth but also the adults. It is therefore important to ensure that physical interaction is maintained to ensure healthy growth and development.
References:
McClam, T. & Woodside, M. (2008).An Introduction to Human Services. New York, NY:
Cengage Learning.
Stahl, C. (2007).Issues and trends in technology and human interaction Advances in technology
and human interaction series:
Idea Group Inc (IGI).
Waller, A. (2009).Constructing adolescence in fantastic realism. vol. 55 of Children's
literature and culture. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
