Nowadays, social media deeply penetrate 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 that while social media is 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. Singapore has a 73% Internet penetration rate, this will cause great impact if social isolation becomes a new normal. 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, so that teenagers will not trade offline social with social media.
In order to gain public usage, social network providers are making their services as close as possible to people's real life. 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, it will draw teenager’s attention away from their offline social life. It is more common to observe groups of young people gather together but instead of spending time with their friends, they put more attention to their phones. As the definitions of virtual and real are not clearly defined and differentiated, teenagers who spend on average 5.5 hours per day on social media, will be most vulnerable to social isolation.
Social media only provide a mental relief but leave people physically and emotionally alone. It is true that social media provides a fast channel for teenagers to reach out to one another and easily get connect to people across space. While teenagers start to rely on social media to develop their relationships, they also let the technology led them to undesirable places, slowly without notice. Online information can be created, edited and deleted in a way that people can choose how they are perceived. Teenagers begin to build their relationships merely for the sake of connections and hide their true self from one another. This generates a wider separation between teenagers and the society.
Social isolation caused by social media largely affects teenager's communication skill. 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 a fast response and feedbacks. Other factors such as body language, eye contact, the tone of voice are crucial in conducting an effective communication, but none of these can be seen in social media communications which opposite parties interact with each other through a flat screen and digitized information.
The solution proposed by Jones in ‘Technology: Creator or Savior of Social Isolation’ suggests that, technology can provide a platform to bring people together, to tighten social bonds. But the author does not demonstrate 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 social isolation.
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 limiting the time which teenagers are allowed to access their social network accounts and the amount of contents they are allowed to upload. This will force teenagers to keep their social lives away from social media. Once the connection between online social life and real life is broken, teenagers will begin to realize that they cannot apply what they obtain from online to real life. They will slowly but definitely move their focus away from the virtual world.
Schools, being the most important education center, play an important role in prevent social isolation among teenagers. Schools should have their networks block out all major social networking sites and at the same time reinforce the difference between online and offline social. Even though this may seem to be a restrictive measure, but it is necessary for teenagers to develop a right and healthy social life. Schools can also organize activities such as class outings and overseas trips, to reconstruct the importance of real world interactions and communications.
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.
Government of Singapore. Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore. (2012). Individuals who are Internet users 2012. [Data file]. Retrieved from: http://www.ida.gov.sg/Tech-Scene-News/Facts-and-Figures
Sim, F. (2013 January 11). S’pore youths spending more time online: study. Yahoo News Singapore. Retrieved from: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/s-pore-youths-spending-more-time-online--study-100333925.html
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
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