Can you imagine, opening a box to a new iphone and thinking about how you can now easily speak to your friends and easily stay in touch with them by using the new phone. Through out a period of time, people have been arguing that technology is bad or not needed. People say that technology has been causing people to isolate themselves, and that it has been causing misery and depression. I disagree with this, I believe that technology is good because it opens up a world of socializing possibilities. I am going to argue that technology is good for social skills and social abilities because it strengthens communication and allows people to easily stay in touch.

With technologies such as cell phones for texting and computers for emailing and chatting, one’s social life is opened to many possibilities. Cell phones allow people to text and call each other, and they allow constant whenever, wherever communication. Most teens and adults with cell phones have a wide social life. A lot of teens and adults do not like to take their eyes off of their phones, much less their hands off them either. Texting is usually a huge part of a teen’s life and most of the time an adult’s life too, they must be talking on them at all times. Same as texting, emailing allows people to stay in touch too. With the click of a button, a conversation can be instantly sent. I agree with Coget and Yutaka in that the “internet can make it easier to keep in touch with friends”. Although texting and emailing are not face-to-face conversations, they still play a huge role by boosting one’s social life. Also, technologies such as the iPod, influence self-expression, which is another helpful factor in having a good social life. Creating a playlist made of music of your own choice and sharing it public like the people explained in Jen Harris’ article, are ways to express one’s self and to open up potential socialization. I agree with Harris in that “the iPod does more to unite people than it does to divide them”. The way iPods unite people, just as the way they did in London, England, is that you can find someone with the same taste in music as you.

In Bob Affonso’s article, he states that technologies cause “misery and loneliness and a decline in overall psychological well-being”. First of all, Bob Affonso selectively sampled. Technology does not cause everyone to experience misery and loneliness. Also, it seems that the observations made by Affonso were directed towards technologies that involve only one’s self, like video games. I agree that video games might cause misery and loneliness, not to mention brain damage, because many kids lock themselves in a room for a given number of hours and don’t come out for a long time. It seems that video games are a way for some to isolate themselves from society. In an article, one asks if technology is “leading to a society of isolated beings” (Song 1). Krystle Song makes it sound like people are playing a game of “keep away” from the world because of technology. The technology itself is not what causes people to isolate themselves, but it is how the people choose to use it whether it is in a good way or a bad way. Another article created by Neil Postman says that during kindergarten, kids learn how to play fair, share, and wash their hands. In Postman’s article, a quote written by Robert Fullghum states “that no one has learned all these things at kindergarten’s end”. What Robert Fullghum in Postman’s article is saying is that technologies, such as online classrooms, are preventing people from obtaining good social abilities like the ones stated in Postman’s article. Firstly, Postman is comparing older people to kindergarteners. He is using a faulty analogy here. Secondly, older people aren’t going to be deprived of good social abilities at their age, they will have already gone through kindergarten and learned these things.

After stating my argument, one can now conclude that technology is helpful in obtaining good social abilities, because it adds onto the social abilities that most people already have. People are falsely accusing technology as being the culprit or reason that people do not have good social abilities. Using technology well, and not using it improperly, is a good way to boost one’s social skills. I believe that technology is good for one’s social abilities because it strengthens communication and allows people to stay in touch.