The Seduction of Technologies
Technology dazzles. But can it provide better relationships? Each new gadget release spawns immediate mass media promotion and legions of technophiles lining up to get their hands on the newest “tech.” And with good reason. Who is not enamored by a wristwatch that brings you all the information in the world at your voice command? Who is not fascinated by a device that connects you almost instantaneously to anyone in the world? In the mid to late 60’s the television show Star Trek’s dreamed of a science fiction future of instant telecommunications, deadly phaser guns, and teleportation. Those dreams have now just about become reality.
Better relationships
Now, we have technology entering the relationship arena in the form of dating websites and social media platforms. Facebook allows you to “friend” someone and gives the illusion that after this connection, you and that person are now friends. In doing so, Facebook has redefined what the word “friend” actually means. A recent study by Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University found that there was very little correlation between having friends on social networks and actually being able to depend on them. Forget about talking to them regularly. (Here is a link to the actual study and another to a write up on the study’s conclusions) He concluded that of all the “friendships” people have on Facebook, they could really only count on about four of them who would show sympathy and empathy for them in a social or emotional crisis.
There is a relationship between time invested in a relationship and its quality (as rated in terms of emotional closeness). No matter how advanced the “tech” is, there is really only one way to build relationships. Here it is straight from Professor Dunbar’s study:
“Friendships, in particular, have a natural decay rate in the absence of contact, and social media may well function to slow down the rate of decay. However, that alone may not be sufficient to prevent friendships eventually dying naturally if they are not occasionally reinforced by face-to-face interaction.”
With this in mind, here are three things you can do today to maintain and build up real friendships:
1. Be intentional about face-to-face communication.
Status updates, tweets, and posts do not and will never substitute for genuine face-to-face interpersonal communication. That doesn’t mean that we don’t tweet or don’t update social media profiles, it just means for those relationships that are really important, we need to invest “face time” with the other person. If our friendships and relationships are to grow, we must intentionally build into our schedules time for face-to-face communication.
2. Put the gadgets down.
It’s important in our face-to-face interactions to show genuine interest in the other person. We need to communicate that we really listen to them and are not being distracted by our gadgets. Caring about someone means revealing our concern for them – what makes them happy, what makes them hurt, what makes them feel lonely, and what makes them feel passionate. So when you’re meeting with someone in a face-to-face situation, put the distractions aside, put the gadgets down and concentrate on them.
3. Develop Conversational Skills
Because of the bias of technology and electronic communication in our culture, we are losing the social skills that are critical for building and developing strong interpersonal relationships. For older generations, the deterioration isn’t as great as it is for the younger generations who are growing up in an environment of “alone,” technologically mediated communications. Developing our own conversational skills and structuring our lives and family times to help our children develop their abilities to communicate with other people is something that we can do right now that will pay great dividends for our future relationships. I can suggest Sherry Turkle’s book “Reclaiming Conversation” as a good place to begin understanding the situation and how to begin to move forward.