Opposing Views: MySpace, texting, instant messaging ... is cellular and online socializing making our generation too impersonal?

NO

By: Briana Hernandez

Posted: 9/27/07

It's something I can't go a day without seeing. Some indie schmuck or boho-chic poser whining about how technology is becoming the "root of all evil" and how as the world gets wired, the people get colder.

What always gets me laughing is how they plead this case while pulling out a cell phone. Why? Because everyone has one.

Technology, including texting, MySpace and e-mail, is not making the world impersonal.

If anything, it is only maintaining our level of distance from one another. Last time I checked, using the telephone isn't exactly an intimate form of human contact.

How is the ability to message someone on the Web somehow so much worse than talking to them from around the world on the telephone?

I think what people forget about MySpace and other networking sites is that the ultimate objective to "friending" someone online is to eventually meet them in person. This is especially true in the world of online dating.

The era of singles bars, wedding crashing or just plain luck with chance encounters is dead and gone, leaving in its place a more efficient, possibly easier way to meet people.

Now, instead of cruising the scene and trying to find a needle in a haystack, you can cut your time in half by joining a dating site.

While it certainly opens up the pool of potentials, the screening process that comes with assessing a match may give you a better idea of where to start.

But this does not change the fact that even after you find who you're looking for, no amount of technology will be able to aid you on an actual, real-life date. If technology were truly hindering human connection and contact, the bars would be closed and wedding bells would never ring.

Even where technology may be making interaction more impersonal, it is absolutely making it more efficient.

I have a boss whom I have only met three times in the year-and-a-half I have been working for him. Rather than commute an hour to conduct business together, we correspond online. I applied for the job via e-mail. He assessed and hired me via e-mail.

Is this impersonal? You bet. Can you believe that I didn't have to go to an interview where not only would my actual work and qualifications be judged, but also something as trivial as my wardrobe and appearance?

Can you believe that I cut out all the formalities and went straight to the part where the big cheese said, "You're hired"? How horrible!

Internet communication, however, does not negate the need for people skills. In order to make connections, in any medium, you still have to know how to talk to people.

In my case with the mystery employer, I had to write an e-mail fit to charm and grab attention, just like speaking to someone in person. Just because I was using the Internet to make an impression, didn't mean that said impression was impersonal.

The Internet is not some magical tool that replaces the qualities you need to win people over.

The only shortcut the Internet offers is with distance in miles, not in honing of social skills.

One of my favorite albums of all time is Dead Kennedys' "Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death." The title is a commentary on consumerism in America - a commentary with which I actually agree.

We can't jump to conclusions, however, that everything that might make life a little more convenient is detrimental to society.

Let's not be so dramatic.

If anything, the gasoline we put in our cars to get us to someone's doorstep is a little worse than a slight lack of face time - in the big picture, that is.