Mimi Bezooijen | 359174 | CM1007 | Group C Asignment 2 | Word count: 2.

493 Todays youth and Technology Technology might have changed the principle of friendship for ever; the need to be physically close to someone in order to communicate has faded. It seems like all our relationships have transcended into the online world; we find our new lovers online, kids get bullied online, we maintain our friendships online, but what does this change mean? I for one have not decided yet. Sure, I can now remain friends with people who live in Australia or Italy, but I also use the internet to contact people who live nearby. The biggest challenge is probably the generation that grows up in this environment, for them internet relationships are more or less the standard. Therefore, an interesting field of research is the changes in childrens perception and standards of relationships. What are the dangers of children and young adults relying more and more on the internet for their social relationships? Making friends is a very important socializing process for children, a process Facebook may endanger. Thus, online friendships will come to replace real friendships. and over time this will lead to a generation that is unable to engage in day to day communication Getting closer or further away? New technologies play a significant part in our daily routines and leads to an interconnected world. McLuhan(1975) used the global village methapor to describe this phenomenon, and this is still applicable today. Internet has made the world more accessible and smaller than ever before, however it also made people less dependent on interpersonal relationships. McQuillen (2003) states "Paradoxically, the closer we get, the further apart we appear to be" . Children growing up in this internet focused society will most likely turn to the internet to manage their friendships. On the internet, most communication can be very hard to decode; textual messages lose the non-verbal cues we get in a face to face conversation, therefore sarcasm or humor may come across as offensive. Relationships that depend solely or mostly on technology will develop differently from face to face friendship (McQuillen,2003), mainly because internet conversation can never go as in depth as real life conversation because its loses all the non-verbal layers. The internet has rapidly become one of the most important aspects of childrens daily lives (Finkelhor et all., 2002). Internet provides an escape from real life and a place where children can find people with the same interest or troubles as them. Often, children form relationships with the people they meet in their online environment. In a study with 1501 children aged 11-16, results showed that 25% of the respondents formed close friendships with people they met online (Finkelhor et all., 2002). In the same research, 41% of the respondents claimed their online friends are more important to them than their real life contacts. This number is extremely high, and shows us were we might be heading. Many adolescents use their online life as an escape from their real life, but the fear remains that that the online life will become the most important one (Finkelhor et all., 2002). If real friendship succumb to the virtual ones, this will have great effect in the communication skills of individuals. Face to face communication will still be necessary in our daily lives, yet the socialization process that we get when engaging with our offline friends gets lost. This can be very problematic in the future, leading to an incapable society.

Mimi Bezooijen | 359174 | CM1007 | Group C Asignment 2 | Word count: 2.493 Koikkalainen and Oleaga (1998) looked at the role of media in childrens lives. Their conclusion stated that media did not change childrens perception of friendship, they believe children still socialize with their peers and communicate with them face to face, just now the subjects have mostly switched to media related issues. Koikkalainen and Oleaga even state that television and games play an important role in learning kids to share and engage with information. However, Koikkalainen and Oleaga only focus on the positive aspects of children and media and they fail to take into account that video games and television programs also effect children in a negative way. Entertainment media does not portray the real world; children may not be able to clearly distinguish between reality and fantasy and may end up with fear of the outside world. It is important to know that tales have always portrayed the world in an unrealistic way, yet the danger of the internet is that the unrealistic world is portrayed as realistic. Another negative aspect of children is that they remain nave for the consequences of their online life. The internet is the perfect playground for people who want to take advantage of children, but mostly children are unaware of this. Other changes The relationships between children and their parent has changed drastically. Children and parents used to spend time together playing board games or doing house chores; now the one of the most common thing to do with your family is watching television (Koikkalainen & Oleaga, 1998). The generation gap does not only exist between the haves and have nots (elderly people who do not have access to the internet), but is also very visible between parents and children. With all the new media technologies that have been invented in the last few years, adults find it hard to keep up with the younger generation. This age-gap can also influences children in an negative way; parents do not have the knowledge to inform children of the dangers of the internet . Civic engagement and social involvement have both decreased rapidly in the last years (kraut et al., 1998). An active society is very beneficial for a country and for individuals; being actively engaged in society make us feel useful and appreciated. The internet can be a danger for civic engagement, and may be the reason of an even bigger decline. When people no longer need their close environment for personal relationships, why bother being an active participant for your neighborhood? People are no longer a part of their local community, but they feel more connected to their online community. Children who grow up in this society will never learn the importance of engaging with their close environment. The expected result will be an society that is alienated from its close environment (kraut et all., 1998). Of course, urbanization has also lead to the decreasing of civic engagement, but the technology still plays a very important role. The first waves of urbanizations did not lead to a decrease in civic engagement; Short (2001) argues that back then people got closer to a specific group and were very active in that group. The society got very fragmented but was still very active. Now, people do not turn to their environment for a social group anymore, they turn to their online groups. That is specifically why the internet gives civic engagement and social involvement a big push downwards. Depression, loneliness and stress Although the main use of the internet is engaging in social activities, the heavy internet usage has negative outcomes on a persons wellbeing. This is another paradox, even though the internet is used for communication, internet usage also lead to a decline in social involvement. People are

Mimi Bezooijen | 359174 | CM1007 | Group C Asignment 2 | Word count: 2.493 substituting strong relationships with weak ones which can be more easily maintained online. Because online friends do not share our day-to-day environment, communication may be harder because they dont share the same context (Clark, 1996). The current generation will depend much more on their online friendships leaving a big gap in their lives, which will result in long-term loneliness. Rogers and Young (2009) describe the paradox of loneliness by stating that because we have the need to feel connected to someone, we go online to make friends. However, online relationships can never fully for fill our needs, but we remain turning to the internet to for social relationships. The current generation may run into big problems if they do not find a way to fulfill their social needs. Social networking sites like Facebook and twitter have a big influence on todays youth (Gonzales&Hancock,2010). These sites only show one side of us, which leads to people comparing themselves against unrealistic image of others. This can lead to long-term depression and low self esteem. However, social networking can also make us more self aware of who we are and who we want to be. Amongst children and young adults Facebook is part of their social status, its an intricate game of popularity , friendship and slang that is very hard to fully understand for people who are a not part of it themselves. Kim and Lee (2011) investigated the effects of Facebook on the well-being of its users. Results showed that especially girls find it hard to cope with self presentation and the pressure to be perfect online. Guys mostly search for positive support of their Facebook friends in the form of likes and comments. Facebook friendships mainly exist of posting on each others wall and liking pictures, only 18% claim they use Facebook for in-depth communication with their friends (Kim&Lee,2011). It is frightening to learn how much children and young adults depend on others to feel confident about themselves and their lives. Because Facebook is a relatively new medium the long term effects are still uncertain, but if the current generation continues on this path it will result in an superficial and fake Facebook society, where in-depth relationships are hard to find. A positive tone? It is undeniable that the internet has also brought us great things. Riots were won thanks to twitter and Kony got famous due to a viral YouTube clip. The internet has made people more connected and likely to collaborate with each other than ever before (Sawhney&Prandelli,2005). The internet has created an environment where people can create, collaborate and share with each other. Also, it provides youth who feel different from their environment with the opportunity to find like minded online, examples are gay communities. However, the result of this escaping into online communities will undoubtedly lead to a society where people live isolated from their close environment. If almost all relationships will take place in the online world, even basic real life communication at work will be a challenge for some. Conclusion Although it remains a challenging and complex field of research, there are some conclusions we can draw from our investigation. The internet has quickly become very integrated in almost all of our daily routines, and has also gradually replaced a lot of things leading to us depending on the internet for almost everything. It is quite disturbing that also children and teenagers have become dependable on the internet, especially when it comes to friendships.

Mimi Bezooijen | 359174 | CM1007 | Group C Asignment 2 | Word count: 2.493 Online lives have come a place for children to escape to, and to feel accepted. In our society. Online communities can provide children with the ability to come in contact with like-minded, something that is vital in the growing process of children. Yet, these online relationships will over time endanger the ability to engage in face to face communication, and will lead to an society that is estranged from their close environment. Research conducted by Finkelhor et al.(2002) showed that a lot of people find their online friends more important than their real life friends. This is disturbing, because online friendship can never reach the depth of real life relationships, because the communication is harder to decode properly(McQuillen,2003). Heavy internet usage can also lead to depression, because the internet calls for a perfect self presentation which is really hard to deliver for most teenagers (Kim & Lee, 2011). Another dark side to internet is the fact that it contributes to the decrease of social involvement. People tend to attach more value to their online communities than to their real environment, which will lead to a more closed and individual society. The more positive attitude towards the internet is mainly based on how the power has shifted towards the users, and how interconnected the world has become thanks to it. However, the case remains that the positives will not outweigh the negatives. The internet is great as a tool for connection the world, yet the paradox is that we get further away from our own environment. In my own opinion, the internet is a wonderful invention. Yet, we must be very careful in the way we use it. I grew up playing outside, and now I only use the internet as an addition to my friendships, not as a substitute. Internet should be an asset to our life, not something we are dependable on. Children who grow up with the internet being their most important form of entertainment and communication may not know how to maintain real life relationships. Of course, this is a very negative and extreme idea, but the direction the society is heading is not very promising. To conclude, because the internet has become such an important aspect of our daily lives, the long term effects of this may be harmful. Several academics has made the effects of the internet their field on study, and their researches showed that the internet can be very harmful for our social environment and personal wellbeing. Yet, especially concerning is the fact that online relationships will come to replace our real life ones. Of course the internet has also brought as wonderful things, and has enabled the users to take power, yet these positives do not outweigh the negatives. We should make sure that the generation that grows up in this internet based society will still be part of their offline environment.

Conclusion 550 words.

Mimi Bezooijen | 359174 | CM1007 | Group C Asignment 2 | Word count: 2.493

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