Which is better: texting through social media or speaking face to face? This online communication essay explores the two options and shows which of them is more preferable.
Online Communication Essay Introduction
Today, there are many opportunities to communicate with friends and relatives with the help of modern technologies. Online communication becomes more popular with the youth because there is no necessity to go out in order to learn the friends’ latest news. From this point, the popularity of online communication grows at the expense of personal contacts. People often choose to stay at home and share news and opinions with the help of Twitter instead of going to the café.
Thus, the computer-mediated communication became the everyday reality which is convenient for people who do not want to spend much time communicating personally or do not want to change the comfortable atmosphere of their homes in order to meet friends. Although online communication is the latest tendency to define the specifics of the people’s interactions, the computer-mediated communication should not be discussed as the negative factor influencing the quality of the people’s everyday interactions and relations with their friends and relatives because online communication is only the other form of interacting with the persons from the people’s social circles.
Face-to-Face Communication vs Online Communication Essay Body
Online or computer-mediated communication can be discussed as a kind of stimulation for people to support their relations with the other people, sharing the information and opinions with the help of the instant messaging system, chats, or different posts in the social networks. Valkenburg and Peter pay attention to the fact that “recent online communication technologies, such as IM, encourage communication with existing friends” (Valkenburg and Peter).
New technologies allow continuing active communication after friends’ meetings and personal or face-to-face interactions (Warschauer). Thus, people receive the opportunity to contact their friends and relatives during the whole day long and develop their relations.
It is important to note that while communicating online, people are inclined to make their communication similar to face-to-face interactions with the help of emoticons and other popular techniques.
Furthermore, emoticons are usually used “in positive contexts than in negative contexts” (Derks and Grumbkow, 101). Nevertheless, computer-mediated communication cannot be discussed as an effective alternative to personal or face-to-face communication. That is why it is possible to speak only about the tendency to decrease the number of personal contacts than about the absolute ignorance of face-to-face communication as the important element of any interpersonal relations.
From this perspective, modern technologies provide people with a lot of possibilities to communicate regularly and much without any necessity to go to the cinema or café to talk with friends. Such technologies as Skype help create the illusion of the people’s presence. The instant messaging system help create the illusion of a real dialogue. Thus, according to Nekmat, those persons who receive and express “their thoughts and opinions on a certain issue online” are cognitively involved in the process of communication (Nekmat 218). As a result, it is possible to speak about the imitation of a real dialogue between persons.
Online Communication Essay Conclusion
Modern technologies which help people communicate using their computers instead of meeting and interacting personally should not be discussed as the threat to the development of the people’s interpersonal relations. Online communication is effective to encourage people’s interactions and develop their relations because people can communicate without paying attention to their location. Moreover, the decreasing number of personal contacts and meetings does not influence the quality of people’s relations.
Works Cited
Derks, Daantje, and Jasper Grumbkow. “Emoticons in Computer-Mediated Communication: Social Motives and Social Context”. CyberPsychology & Behavior 11.1 (2008): 99-101. Print.
Nekmat, Elmie. “Message Expression Effects in Online Social Communication”. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56.2 (2012): 203-224. Print.
Valkenburg, Patti, and Jochen Peter. Online Communication and Adolescent Well-Being: Testing the Stimulation versus the Displacement Hypothesis. 2007.
Warschauer, Mark. Online Communication. 2001.