Thursday, June 25, 2009

Decline of Face-to-Face Communication

Internet use promises many benefits to our society. It effectively bridges the gap of our world's geographical distance and at the same time facilitates the sharing of information. The past decade has shown tremendous growth and development of the Internet. However, the proliferation of online child pornography and other various cyber crimes have shown that it is very much subject to abuse. This is not new to us.

Despite the Internet's benefits to society I think it has really caused a huge decline in face-to-face communication. Now, people simply prefer to write e-mails or log-in Facebook or Friendster to "connect" with friends and family. Although I recognize the convenience of doing so, this has negatively impacted our ability to personally interact with other people. Now, the formation of interpersonal "bonds" has been reduced to simply clicking "Add as Friend" in various online communities. Without realizing so, human beings are slowly becoming devoid of face to face contact with others.

Even if I recognize and admit the benefits of the Internet, we all should, once in a while, take a step back and communicate with others through traditional means.

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