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SXSW Panel: Is Technology Weakening Interpersonal Relationships?
Date/Time: 3:30 on Friday, March 12
Panelists: Corinne Weisgerber of St. Edward University, Ashley Brown of Jones-Dilworth, Jenn Deering-Davis of the University of Texas, Matthew Weber of University of Southern California
Quotes:
Brown: “Technology is degrading the way we develop romantic relationship. We’ve lost private moments with our loved ones.”
Weisgerber: “My husband has said that he’s a social media widower….Time spent maintaining online relationships is time we don’t spend nurturing our real life relationships.”
Weber: “You can only put so many relationships in your network before you start to lose effectiveness….We can only maintain roughly 150 social relationships. The more we and our friends become connected, the fewer overall relationships we can maintain.”
Takeaways: How we define friends has forever changes, and our ability to communicate and develop relationships without having met someone has evolved, but that doesn’t completely replace face-to-face interaction.
The amount of time and energy spend on maintaining our online relationships can threaten our real-life relationships in a number of ways. An extreme example: Weisgerber cited a couple in Korea whose baby died of starvation because they spent so many hours a day raising a virtual child online. On a smaller scale, the more time we spend online, the less time we give to our real life friends and family members, which can weaken the bond.
Our relationship with work has changed: Almost universally, people are working more, but because of the flexibility, they are reporting that they like it. The problem is, this can lead to addictive behavior, Jeering-Davis says.
In a romantic relationship, technology is a third party that can suck enough time and mental energy that it has the same effect as cheating. Facebook is cited in one out of every five new divorce cases. In new relationships, you often have access to a person’s online identities before you meet them in real life, which either can create problems because of unrealistic expectatioms or cause a relationship to progress much more quickly.
Deering-Davis was the lone member of the panel to believe that it’s possible to have a quality relationship built entirely online. We prioritize face-to-face interaction because that’s what we’ve had for the longest time, but technology can provide the same results, she said.
— Addie Broyles
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