Technology: The Influence Of Technology

1286 Words6 Pages
When dealing with a debate about technology, specifying which mean is the debate referred to its important, as it the term technology encompasses a wide range of means that people use in their life. Phrases such as “teens are addicted to technology” (Perle 2014) create a lot of ambiguity because of this lack of definition of the term. But because in society technology has been portrayed mainly as internet-related activities, many people blame technology for the ongoing phenomena in their children, specially teenagers. It is unclear for many how and addiction can be a good thing, or how a non-physical communication can be beneficial. And this uncertainty of concepts and connections, leads to common beliefs of the negative impact of technology…show more content…
There are two main causes for the improvement of quality. The first one is that technology enables teenagers to have a constant interaction with their friends, which causes them to feel closer to them (Subrahmanyam and Šmahel 2011). This means that online interaction improves the quality of friendship by allowing the development of closer ties. The second one is that the use of technology, in specific ICTs, contributes to the strength of the relationships. This happens because the way the connection with others through technology is made, is generally seen as a relationship enhancer (Chesley and Johnson 2014). This is due to the fact that technology allows teenagers to communicate with their friends more, which contributes to adding value to the life of their peers (Gerber 2013). The social activity of teenagers is expanded because of this improvement in the quality. This expansion is a factor for improvement of self-esteem because social activity leads to knowing what the others think about yourself, and, for teenagers, this information is crucial to define their identity (Chesley and Johnson 2014). By contributing to the definition of the identity, there is an indirect contribution to self-esteem, as identity plays a big role in the latter (Stets…show more content…
This addiction disorder means that the person is dependent in the internet, increasing its importance to a point where its use dominates this person’s life (Chesley and Johnson 2014). When this happens, the online communications take a higher priority level for the person, causing physical contact with other aspects to be lost (Subrahmanyam and Šmahel 2011). This is related to the identity issues because technology addiction is linked to less personal control and it is an obstacle to face-to-face relationships (Jensen-Savoie 2011). Less personal control is a reason to start trying different identities hiding behind the screen. Face-to-face relationships play a crucial role in identity construction, so by being an obstacle, they make the process of the stabilization of it more difficult (Jensen-Savoie 2011). Because of this, the negative link between technology and self-esteem cannot be generalized as it only applies in the cases of an addiction
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