Students segregate themselves with technology
Leslie Sims
Leslie SimsMesa Legend
Evidence has shown that social skills among the younger generations are deteriorating and technology could be the culprit.
Jack Peterson, a sociology professor at Mesa Community College said he has noticed a significant change among younger people and how they interact in social situations.
“Technology is both a blessing and a curse; it comes with a price,” Peterson said. “The negative consequences are more subtle and it takes a long time for them to develop. They sneak into our lives unnoticed and we oftentimes are in denial about them. We don’t even know that it has become a problem because we get so used to it.”
He used portable music devices as an example of a device that can create problematic psyches.
“When people are walking around campus and they have their iPods or MP3 players in, they are physically in the presence of other people but they’re also sociologically and psychologically distancing themselves from them,” Peterson said. “You’re rubbing shoulders with people but you’re not interacting with them, you’re in your own little private technology world.”
Lindsay McMahon, a student at Arizona State University, said she listens to music on the way to class as a way to ensure people won’t talk to her.
“I don’t think I have a problem interacting with people, I just don’t think it’s necessary to talk to people I don’t know in passing,” McMahon said.
“These skills are being diminished because people are not practicing them as much… You learn these skills by putting yourself in situations where you need to use them. People these days just aren’t putting themselves in those situations; therefore those skills can’t be developed adequately,” Peterson said.
Peterson said that most people in the younger generation don’t know that their technology use is negatively affecting them.
“Awareness gives you power. In order to fix a problem we need to know that a problem exists,” Peterson said.
He stated that a majority of those whose social skills are affected by technology don’t realize it, and in the cases they do recognize the deficiency, they don’t identify its cause.
“If we become conscious of a problem, then that gives us the determination to really do something about it,” Peterson said. “You can’t fix it if you truly don’t know it is there.
