Nowadays, social media deeply penetrates young people's daily life. From sustaining friendships to expanding social circles, teenagers are heavily dependent on social media to construct their relationships with other people. In “Alone Together” by Turkle (2012), she mentions while social media was used as a tool to connect people, it is now causing wider separation. This isolation is extremely harmful to teenagers as they are in a crucial age of developing self awareness through interacting with other people. The only effective solution is for Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (iDA) to pose regulations that draw clearer distinctions between individual's online social life from real life.
In order to gain public usage, social network providers are making their services as close as possible to people's real life. Social media application link users’ online identification to their phone numbers. Locating services that can expose the users’ locations and also provide the information on other people around the same area. Real life friends become online follower and online followers become real life friends. Teenagers growing up in such environment do not observe the difference between online social and offline social. As social media appears to be more efficient and powerful, they tend to put all their attentions on social media and at the same time sacrifice their offline social life. It is not shocking to see teenagers putting their heads into their phones whenever they are left alone even for just a few seconds. Nowadays, it is also more common to observe groups of young people gather together but each one of them still put their heads into their phones. As the definitions of virtual and real are not clearly defined and differentiated, there is high chance that teenagers will isolate themselves from other people and even the society
It is true that social media provides a fast channel for people to reach out to one another and easily get connect to people across space. While people start to rely on social media to develop their relationships, they also let the technology led them to undesirable places, slowly without notice. People begins to build their relationships merely for the sake of connections. Social media only provide a mental relief but leave people physically and emotionally alone. Online information can be created, edited and deleted in a way that people can choose how they are perceived. People begin to hide their true self from one another and as such even though they are able to conduct communications in any place and at any time, they cannot truly understand each other. The purpose of communication has lost due to the pursuit of more connection. Thus social media generates a wider separation among people..
Social isolation caused by social media largely affects teenager's communication skill. The methods of communication used in social media are largely in the form of texts or pictures. As efficiency is the priority in online social media communications, the language used is generally short, plain and straight to the point. When conveying a message, some details are skipped in order to obtain fast response and feedbacks. Wrong interpretations and false information are easily arise due to such fast food type of communication. Effective communication is not only about words. Other factors such as body language, eye contact, the tone of voice are crucial in conducting an effective communication. None of these can be seen in social media communications which opposite parties interact with each other through a flat screen and digitized information.
Solution proposed by Jones in ‘Technology: Creator or Savior of Social Isolation’ suggests that, technology can provides a platform to bring people together, to tighten social bonds. But the author does not realise that it is the same technology that is causing all the trouble. As people demand more on technology and less on each other, there will be absolutely no way that technology can reverse the situation no matter how advance it will be. Instead, it will only exacerbate the problem.
In order to solve the problem, it is necessary to target at its root cause. iDA should restrict social media providers from allowing their teenage users to access their full services. Some ways include limit the time which teenagers are allowed to access their social network accounts and do not disclose their profiles to the rest. The main purpose of this is to break the connection between online social life and real life. When teenagers start to realize they cannot apply what they obtain from online to real life, they will begin to move their focus away from virtual world.
Such measures cannot go without education. Societies, schools and families have to reinforce the importance of real world interactions and communications, through activities such as outing and family gathering, to reconstruct the lost bonds.
Individuals must not forgo their real social life in exchange for greater dependence on the virtual. Teenagers been a most vulnerable group will easily being carried away and become isolated and at the same time losing their communication skills. It is necessary for powerful authorities such as iDA to reverse the situation. As such, teenagers are able to enjoy the benefits of social media while minimize the harm associated with it.
Reference
Turkle, S. (2012). Alone Together. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Jones, C. Technology: Creator or Savior of Social Isolation [Supplemental material]. De Vry University Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/6879244/Technology_Creator_or_Savior_of_Social_Isolation
