Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Digital Media, Disintegrating Relationships

Alli, a young girl sits at the dinner table sneaking a peek at her phone as she sits next to her brother at the dinner table.

 “Allison, put your phone down and be with us right new” her parents say in a warning tone.

“But I am texting my friend Laycee”, Alli says, “It’s very important”.  

Meanwhile a girl sits in class completely distracted by the social media on her computer. Although building social relations she is missing out on the socialization she could get at school.

 Is digitalization tearing down social society or is it enhancing social relations? Both sides to this question could be emphasized by Alli’s situation. She is building relationships digitally but she is missing out on the other interpersonal relationship building opportunities that are available. So which is more important and is it possible to strike a balance. Sure, digital dialogue is building relationships but in the same it is tearing them down. This situation has numerous forms. You have seen this all around you, on the bus, in your classes, and even at a local dance people can be found occupied with their phones and devices. Even Christmas can be taken over by children obsessively playing with their new personal media devices while ignoring the festivities that surround them. The effects are numerous.
 
Not only is this effecting society on a personal social level but also on a larger scale. I am personally concerned with the effects of social media on religious attendance. In my World Religions class we talked about the effects of giant churches with a wide spread media outreach. People are missing out on necessary personal social relations because they church is being taken to the home rather than a meeting house. These large scale conferences loose the small, personal relationships that could develop. Thus making it easier for people to decide to just quit watching. These conferences are becoming more and more popular. These digital churches are making it hard for people to us church as a social outlet. Thus it is causing others to have to reach out in society in other ways. Church is a very important social situation in society and it is very important that we preserve these societies. Without this society may soon disintegrate to digital churches and eventually to no church at all.


3 comments:

  1. Good argument! As I was reading this I thought, "Who is Alli? Is that your sister or just a hypothetical person?" This story combined with a stock image wasn't as effective as I would have liked in conveying emotions to the reader. Could you swap that out with a personal photo first and could you connect it more on a personal level? Very interesting topic that has great potential for the project! My other suggestion is just to make sure your beliefs are not making you too biased, for example with the statement, "Church is a very important social situation in society and it is very important that we preserve these societies" because that can also be argued against with the larger audience we have.

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  2. I made pretty much the same argument, only I focused more on how society and civilization is hindered because of personal relationships crumbling because of all this digital media. I think it is interesting that you mentioned churches because religion makes up a society as well. But I would ask, is it likely that all churches will become digital in the future? Because ours has digital elements, but I don't think that it will be fully digitalized. Would it only be some churches?

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  3. I feel like this is a very good start, but could be expanded. It seemed like you set it up for a very insightful argument, and then it ended. Are there statistics to back it up? Or as was mentioned, is Alli somebody you know, or could you bring a personal angle into it? Also a very interesting point about digital churches. I've even heard of youtube videos teaching how to baptize oneself online!

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