Topic: the development of technology changes the way people connect with each other. In which way the development of technology change the types of relationships that people make. It has positive or negative effects? (16.8.2013)
The modern technology has revolutionized the concept of communication. It has brought in the market many gadgets to facilitate communication .This has hence led to a considerable change in types of relationships. In my view, the effects of technology are largely positive.
Firstly, two of the great improvements in technology are that the speed of communication has increased manifold and its cost has been cut drastically. For example, in the pre-information technology days, sending a letter required a visit to the post office and postage stamp. Faster methods such as telegrams still had certain limitations in number of text and remained costly. However, modern devices namely computers and the internet have made it easy to facilitate the process of creating and editing documents, even applying features such as spell check and grammar check automatically. Email allows sending any documents across the globe within seconds, which makes telegrams and letters end up being obsolete.
Furthermore, the accessibility of the Internet has improved relationships due to its low costs. People are getting connected to each other and there are little chances of misunderstanding because of communication gap. With the help of social network, they can spread the net of connection, like tracking down old friends or casting light on now business opportunities and the like.
On the downside, the possibility of high quality communication from anywhere to anywhere else at low costs has resulted in a marked decline in face to face interaction and in an increased reliance on written communication over electronic mediums. Communication is hence very short and concise. The small keyboards of mobile phones or other handheld devices make typing difficult, which leads to a radical shortening of words and increasing uses of symbols and abbreviations, with little or even no adherence to traditional grammatical rules.
To put it in a nutshell, I do believe that as every garden has its weeds, the effects of technology is bound to negatively influence the way people connect to each other. However, it should be noted that the development of technology definitely turns out to be a boon, rather then a bane in the long run.
Hi Impossibleme - another outstanding essay. I think your writing is excellent, but your last body paragraph seems to be overreaching a bit. This seems to be more a question of smartphones rather than technology in general. Perhaps it is really because the technology is limited - when voice recognition gets better, people can say rather then type their messages and the confusing symbols and abbreviations may become as quaint as the abbreviations used in old telegraph messages … stop …
You did have a few minor errors, but everything else sounded great. I don’t know if those mistakes would drop your score, but for me, I will rate this a 5 out of 5.