The process of globalization has affected many areas of people’s life. It has changed our economy, business, and finances; it resulted in the high rate of migrations and traveling; it made an impact on education and interactions in the society of the world.
Communication has become a crucial part of people’s lives ever since mail was invented. Exchanging letters and photographs, keeping contact with relatives, loved ones, friends, and business partners became very important for everyone. Through the decade’s technological progress has created a series of changes and made the process of interpersonal communication hundreds of times faster, easier, and more convenient.
In contemporary society, everyone owns a cell phone and a computer. Communication is available twenty-four hours a day. People make themselves available for the quicker reach for their close ones or their colleagues and bosses. Communication online has become one of the most popular ways of interaction for us. Some of us spend a bigger part of the day in front of the screens of various devices.
Instant messages allow us to talk to people from all around the world. Online communication has its good and bad sides. Is provides many advantages such as online dating, studying and making research, maintaining relationships and friendships, it allows the chatters to stay anonymous if they want it.
The Internet contains lots of opportunities and an ability to bring people closer; this kind of communication tends to minimize people’s loneliness and feeling of being misunderstood, which is very typical for teenagers (Tounzen, par. 3). All of these are positive sides of computer-mediated communication, but at the same time, computers and online communication create some negative impacts on people.
Average users spend hours talking online; it may take quite some time to enter a message, especially for people with poor typing skills, and if we multiply this time by the number of times the chatter has to type, we will see that this kind of communication is incredibly time-consuming and is much less convenient than a phone talk, for example (Krow, par. 3). This is why it turns out that a person spends hours conducting a very slow and non-productive conversation.
Besides, internet anonymity is a frequently discussed issue. It seems to create freedom. There is a tendency for people to feel more relaxed talking to strangers on the internet about personal issues, than discussing the same problems with family or friends.
On the other hand, anonymity creates discomfort, people’s inability to see each other’s faces, and body language often results in misunderstandings and misinterpretations. Moreover, chatting online, you never know who may be hiding under a false identity.
Information overload is another disadvantage of such communication. Chatters share lots of facts over hours; most of these details will quickly disappear from people’s memory.
The advantage of this issue is that internet conversations can be saved and revisited (Butteriss, par. 4). There is an opinion that online chats are just like live conversations, but this is incorrect, as chats do not provide intonations, the exchange of messages can be confusing and difficult to follow.
Finally, the most important issue of computer-mediated communication is isolation. Most of the users that practice online communication very often start to replace real contact with the virtual one. As a result, a person spends a lot of time in complete loneliness and starts to suffer from social self-separation.
Online communication is a good practice, but just like with anything else, it is better not to overuse it. Internet addiction is a common tendency in the contemporary world; this is why it is important to stay wise about your choices and be aware of your behaviors.
Works Cited
Butteriss, Crispin. Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Communication. 2010. Web.
Krow, Shailynn. The Disadvantages of Online Communication. 2014.
Tounzen, Shelley. Pros & Cons of Internet Chatting. 2014. Web.