Is Technology Killing Our Social Behavior?

Recently, there was a cinema advert featuring actor Kevin Bacon and a certain digital communications company. You may have seen it. It's the one where a family sat around a table at an English cafe are having breakfast. In so many words Kevin describes the choice of a full English breakfast over the continental option as a 'no brainer.' -Meaning it's the only choice.

While each member uses a different digital communications device, Kevin also makes comments with words to the effect that having a 'family contract' that covers all devices; a laptop, iPad, mobile phone... etc., is also the only choice to make because this contract, as advertised by the digital communications company, is the most economical...

While all this goes on I'm watching with amazement. I'm thinking did the makers of this advert see what's really going on here? How about the audience, do they see it?

While the family are sat around the table each member is so immersed in their communication device that nobody is interested in talking. This brings me to this: Have we as a human race become so immersed in technology that it is killing our social behaviour? Have we become a mutant race while technology slowly over time is killing our social behaviour?

Today, we know that it has never been easier to communicate with others. We have all these communications devices and social networking websites... but according to research carried out people have never been so lonely.

Although some can have many friends (so-called friends?) on social networking sites the relationships promoted there can be superficial, lacking the depth that face-to-face real live intimate friendship has, like seeing the funny side of things, spontaneous behaviour and silliness that brings laughter...

People online, withdrawn from real life, immersed in the virtual world, sometimes make up false versions of themselves, or perhaps they may end up simply being different to what they would normally be like in real life with others, or perhaps getting lost in trying to look good... Not having the satisfaction that they would normally get in real life in the company of others they then become lonely.

Some are 'trapped' in this virtual world through habit or addiction and find it very difficult to get out of, losing real social and familial connections, hence the term 'the innovation of loneliness' given to the invention of social networking.

It has been said that the world we live in today demands more of us and the idea of rapid and ready friendships, online romances... allows us to manage our time more effectively. However, in spite of this, having virtual friends and romances perhaps in numbers it can be a case of putting quantity before quality: Text messages, emailing... is safer and less vulnerable, but it has been said that it is a poor substitute for real live intimacy...