Gone are the days when students were guaranteed classes uninterrupted by the intrusion of technology. Cell phones and pagers ringing in the middle of classes now are common occurrences. Walking down any sidewalk, you're likely to encounter many students with cell phones pressed to their ears, overly absorbed in their conversations. And forget about enforcing proper noise levels at Clemons or Alderman libraries, because the quiet can be shattered by someone taking a call they just can't miss.
University students live lives of seemingly constant interconnectedness and instant communication. But while we may believe that such incessant communication has brought us closer together, technology actually has a greater role in disrupting human contact than it does facilitating it, said Theodore Homyk, a lecturer in the biology department who teaches a first-year seminar in science fiction.
The introduction of modern conveniences such as the automobile and television had an enormous impact on the quality of social bonds, just by changing the amount of time that people spend with each other, Homyk said.
"Technology has a way of increasing instances of avoidance, and individualizing existence, so that people no longer want to adapt to the presence of others or be inconvenienced by them," Homyk said. "For instance, most people don't carpool because they consider their cars their private space, and most people don't want be disturbed while watching their favorite television shows."
Computers mark yet another encroachment on the time people spend on personal interaction, and Homyk and others claim it's reasonable to say humans will one day spend more time interacting with their personal computers than they do with one another. Such a transformation may well occur as computers become more responsive and user friendly.
Homyk cites the case of a "computers in every classroom" policy in a Northern Virginia school system, where students may have had increased access to technology, but displayed decreased ability to resolve conflicts and form social bonds. Several sociological studies also have established a correlation between increased computer and Internet use with higher rates of depression and feelings of social isolation.
In the case of cell phones, the highly individualized nature of their use means they benefit only the one person engaged with the technology, and often inconvenience those around them.
"Cell phones divert people's attention from their surroundings and other people around them -- the obvious effect being that the importance and quality of interpersonal interaction is diminished," Homyk said. "What people don't realize is that so much communication depends on non-verbal cues such as body language and facial expressions. On the phone, you lose all that, and don't get as much out of it."
"Besides being rude, taking a call while someone else is with you sends a message to them that they are unimportant to you," he said. "Firms have found they lose business if their representatives take calls while dealing with customers."
Homyk also explained although computers and cell phones may increase the absolute amount of time we spend communicating with each other, communication anywhere, anytime devalues the act of communication itself.
Drawing an example from the highly technologizied society of modern Japan, sociologist Hisao Ishii published an entire book on the negative social impact of cell phones called "The Superficial Social Lives of Japan's Mobile Phone Addicts." In it, he details how students become dependent on cell phones to validate their social worth, calling each other not necessarily to have meaningful conversations, but simply to touch base and ensure they are not separated from one another. Not surprisingly, studies in Japan have correlated cell phone use with poor performance in school.
So what is all of this hyperconnectness and instantaneous communication leading toward? Eventually, the interface between the biological and the mechanical will blur to the point where both elements lose their distinction, said Rosalyn W. Berne, assistant professor in the Engineering School's division of technology, culture and communication.
"The Internet in some ways foreshadows this loss of distinction -- it's a huge repository of information, but our interaction with it is still relatively remote in terms of interfacing," Berne said. "In the future, our minds may directly connect to such information banks, and we will be unable to separate or distinguish ourselves from that information or from one another."
He said such a change will have major implications for daily life.
"Once that happens, and life becomes more and more machine based, we will have to redefine ourselves as individuals and as a species," he said.
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