The article Writing, Technology, and Teens was a bit of an awakening. The frequency with which teenagers communicate electronically on a daily basis was expected, but the gender statistics were definitely shocking. The article quotes,
Girls are significantly more likely than boys to socialize or engage with friends daily via a home or landline telephone, cell phone, text messaging, instant messaging, email, and through private messages within a social networking site (Lenhart).How did girls come to take over the internet? Cyber-gossiping, chatting, commenting, and photo-sharing may be a few reasons. Remember those MySpace days? It seems that just about every girl in middle school had her own profile. Just as the article states, boys eventually picked up on social networking and electronic communication. Yet, it is important to note that this article was written in 2008. In just three years, many things have changed. We have evolved from MySpace to Facebook, where everyone from teenage boys to parents and teachers have their own profiles.
We are a progressive generation. Oftentimes, we don't realize things are outdated until we are reminded of their existence. When is the last time you wrote a letter to a friend? At one time, we each set down our postmarked envelopes and opted to send an email instead. It was faster, cheaper, and less time-consuming. Yet, even email activity decreased. In 2008, statistics showed that only 16% of teens used email on a daily basis. With the onset of text messaging, social networks, and personal cell phones, perhaps email has steadily become obsolete. Is this true for you?
Personally, I am still a fan of making telephone calls and emailing. Although I hate to have a full inbox, I find that if I cannot talk to someone face-to-face, the least I can do is leave a voicemail or email the message. It just seems more personal. In an age where privacy is a commodity, I find that secure, one-to-one communication via phone calls/emails is ideal.
Apart from email, decreasing numbers of teens are using blogging platforms as well. The article Social Media and Young Adults states,
In 2006, 28% of teens ages 12-17 and young adults ages 18-29 were bloggers, but by 2009 the numbers had dropped to 14% of teens and 15% of young adults (Lenhart).Take a wild guess as to why..... That's right. Because of Facebook. The fact that a single social networking site has the ability to take over an entire nation (as well as other countries) and its use of the internet is truly astonishing. Perhaps Facebook will become the main reason why we cease emails altogether, or even make phone calls. Since the onset of Facebook, I have not gone more than two weeks without checking my profile. Since the beginning of this course, we have rarely gone through a day without mentioning Facebook. We may not want others to know how frequently we log in to Facebook, but in our day and age, it is likely that others are on just as much as we are. It may be only a matter of time until the world can see exactly when we are on the site, and how often we visit Facebook daily. A scary thought, but with our deteriorating rights to internet privacy, it is a possibility nonetheless.
Sheena,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! You brought up some really good points. I, like you, still appreciate getting voicemails and receiving personal emails. I agree that it makes things more personal and, in an era where personal messages are becoming less frequent, I think it's important to still do. I have to say that, for me, leaving a voicemail is a rare occasion. I'm unsure as to why, but for some reason, I've never been big on leaving voicemails. Nevertheless, they are about as personal as one can get to actually talking to a person either face to face or on the phone.
One point you made that really stood out to me is when you said: In an age where privacy is a commodity, I find that secure, one-to-one communication via phone calls/emails is ideal. I think that discussing privacy in regards to Facebook is important, especially because there are so many changes currently going on with their privacy features. However, this made me wonder how "secure" we actually think phone calls and emails are. I'm always careful not to send emails about something incredibly personal because I've heard stories of emails re-appearing or not actually being deleted and floating around cyberspace. Call me paranoid, but I think it can and does happen. Think of the numerous politicians who have had deleted voicemails and deleted emails come back to haunt their political careers (i.e. Kwame Kilpatrick). I just wonder how private these modes of communication are and whether or not we ever really have the privacy rights we deserve.
I think the main focus of this article, and something you hit upon Sheena, is the speed with which communication now occurs. You're completely right, nobody sits down to write a letter anymore or an email for that matter. This is either because people dont have the time or the patience to do so. Our society (God I hate that word) is developing very quickly into one that can only communicate through 140 characters or less. Though I do not think that this is any one person's fault in particular. We cannot attribute the speed and lack of personal connection to youths only, it is merely the symptom of a larger disesase. Less emphasis is being placed on deep thought and patience and more emphasis is being placed on how quickly you can get out your most superficial thoughts. The paradigm shift of the entire thing I believe is now focused, not on less content, but on content that is divided up and given out over time. The new mindset is quantity not quality.
ReplyDeleteSheena, the precipitous fall in blogging and emailing occured because there are faster means through which to communicate. This is the essence of anything in life really. The statistics in this article do not surprise me. When you were a teenager, the thing that you lacked the most was patience. Immediate results was the only thing you could fathom. And today when we are surrounded by instant communication, those results can come faster than ever. If someone can find a more efficient way to send the same message, both the reader and the writer will choose it and the older form will become obsolete. There is certainly a romance to the hand-written letter, but who has the time for romance in an age of tweets?
You pose the question, "with the onset of text messaging, social networks, and personal cell phones, perhaps email has steadily become obsolete. Is this true for you?" This really got me thinking about what kinds of emails I send and to whom I send them to. I get daily emails from clothing websites, the university, and campus organizations, usually amounting to twenty per day, which I quickly glance over and them immediately delete. Just looking at my personal email habits from yesterday, I deleted 21 of the 27 emails I received and none of these were spam. While my habits may not be reflective of others in my generation, I think it shows the impatience of young people and the brevity they exude when looking over emails. Despite how annoying it may be to have to go through all these emails not only on my computer and my cell phone, for me, emailing has in no way become obsolete. I email my parents when I need to tell them something but don't have the time for a phone call, my sister when I want to send her a link to something funny I discovered, and of course, email future employers.
ReplyDeleteEven thought we live in the age of social networking, it would seem highly informal to shoot a prospective employer a Facebook message or write on their wall. We would never do this. And we would also be concerned if an employer friended us on Facebook and then proceeded to do the same. This sort of employer-employee interaction of Facebook would just never happen. In this sense, I think email is the happy medium between the old days of cold-calling a potential employer and the new-age way of Facebooking them. Email just seems right.