I Speak Computer not People

by Charis Bryan
(Ocala, Florida)

The younge girl's fingers move gracefully across her phone as she texts her best friend about the latest I-Pod. Her mother is in the kitchen talking on the phone to her brother about the loss of his job. The young girl then rolls her office chair back to the computer to e-mail her friend about the loss of her father, while all her friend wants is a hug and someone to talk to her. Today's technology is helpful but it has also handicapped us when it comes to actually communicating with others. Technology lacks emotion and it is causing many people to become unsocialable with others.
First of all, latest technology lacks emotion. When someone is going through a rough time a text message or e-mail doesn't help as much as an actual person to talk too. Communicating electronically is convient but it doesn't help like actual verbal communication does. Also a text message or e-mail can't reach out and give some one a hug if they are feeling sad. Today's technology can be read as cold or unfeeling. Also a comment that was meant to be told jokingly can be taken seriously because technology can not show sarcasm. Technology can't show emotion.
Next, technology makes people become unsociallable with others. Some one may have six hundred friends on Facebook or My Space but they have little to no real friends. Today's technology provides an outlet for emotion but this allows people to never share their feelings in real life. Such isolation from the real world can give people social disabilities. I know someone who is constantly on the computer at home but when they get to school they don't know how to react to anything. Technology can prevent social well being.
In conclusion, technology does not have emotion and it can prevent someone from being socially healthy. Before all this new technology came out people would talk and get to know their neighbors. Now we just put what we want to say on the internet or say it over a phone. People need to use the computer less and their actual voices more. People today have become to dependent on technology and need to practice being social. A wise man said " You can have to much of a good thing."