Table of Contents
How the age of digital media and the internet has affected interpersonal relationships and intercultural communication negatively. This essay will discuss the argument of how the age of digital media and the internet has affected interpersonal relationships and intercultural communication negatively and will then also include the use of life experiences as examples. Interpersonal relationships are a strong bond between two or more people. Intercultural communication is the verbal and the non-verbal interaction between people from different culture backgrounds. Digital/social media refers to digital communication which is used by a vast majority of people who share information.
It can be seen that digital media/new media has a big impact on the way people think and the things people do. It has also changed the way that people look at things, the way people think. New media affects the way people look at themselves and it leads people to thinking that they should look a specific way. For example if they really admire a celebrity or see that person as their role model they will then automatically think that they should look that way too and will then eventually lead to very low self-esteems, depression and worst case scenario it will then lead to suicide.
It can be seen that social media can affect people’s health .These few things can be seen as an effect that social media has on some people:
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- Addiction to social media,
- Stress,
- Emotional connections
- Information.
Some people get addicted to social media which then will eventually lead to eye strain, social withdrawal and can even lead to a lack of sleep. People who spend their time researching problems or arguing with people may experience stress which is seen as a negative impact on their health.
There are large amounts of information that can be found on social media which is health-related it can be seen as very helpful but proper research must be done as random advice can also be very harmful. Taking into consideration that being addicted to social media can be a very big distraction which is very dangerous as people tend to text while they are driving which was also seen as one of the main reasons that has caused accidents on the road. ( DiRenzo, AD, 2016, How can social media affect your health, Ways that social media impacts your health,18 March 2018)
The negative impacts digital media and the internet has on interpersonal relationships
Although the internet enhances social and family relationships people are now spending more time on the internet , so they spend more time at work than what they do with close friends and family which is unhealthy as it can result everyone in drifting apart. One of the pros of the internet is that it allows you to meet people all over the world on applications such as Facebook and Instagram, with the process of getting to know people and most of the time relationships can rise and fall much quicker on these social medias.
Getting to know someone over the internet is a bit risky because people can be whoever they want to be on the internet so then they end up cat fishing people most of the time So in a nut shell digital media does alienate some people for each other but it can then also bring people together.
It can be seen that when teens are hanging out or majority of people are always on their phones posting their latest activity like places they are at, food that they eat and checking what other people are posting, so even is just always caught up in their digital devices, it’s like a constant thing to check what everyone is doing instead of talking and interacting with the people that are around them.
Digital media does have a positive effect on some of us emotionally especially when a person gets lots of likes and comments on their pictures it makes them feel good, but then you get a few people who does not get the amount of likes and comments that they went which then leads them to feeling lonely, envious, very insecure and then could also possibly lead to depression. Therefore by the point provided above it can be seen that people have invested their time, attention and energy into digital media and the internet and have become very absent to their immediate situations.
Therefore with the points and evidence provided above it can be seen that digital media and the internet has a negative effect on interpersonal relationships.
The impact digital media and the internet has on intercultural communication
Intercultural communication is a significant goal of intercultural contact, it generally takes into consideration an ideal type of contact, requiring openness and empathy, and resulting in a deep understanding of others. Digital media or social media represents all the web base applications enabling individuals to interact with each other and also provides a sharing environment for all kinds of content that is produced by other media instruments.
It can be seen that digital media does play an important role in the development of intercultural communication .In the age of the internet and digital media, intercultural communication is experienced on individual level. It can be seen that social media only provides a space in which people of different cultures can freely express their opinions and establish relationships, but it does also challenge the existence of human communication intercultural contexts because of its specific characteristics that are significantly dissimilar to traditional media.
Social media or digital media can also be seen as one of the main force accelerating the trend of globalization in the human society.
For example, socially and culturally globalization has changed the perception about what a community is, redefined the meaning of cultural identity and civic society and demanded a new way of intercultural interaction. Social medias or digital medias distinctive features have brought a highly interconnected and complex level but also challenges the existence of human communication in the human society. The new culture which hatched from social media has created a continuity gap between traditions and innovations within a culture. As a result it can be seen that the cultural gap has caused difficulty in understanding communication between generations and among people in the same culture.
The impact of social media or digital media resulted in the inability of traditional values to keep pace with the new cultural values produced by social media. Digital media has also switched traditional cultural grammar, cultural themes, or cultural maps to a new pattern, resulting in the loss of traditional cultural logic. It can be seen that social media or digital media has fostered a new culture in the human society in which uncertainty has been reshuffled and gas reached its highest point especially in the intercultural communication.so in a nut shell social media is shaking the root of cultural identity by weakening or strengthening the intensity of the relationship between people and community.
Social media or digital media does have a negative impact on intercultural communication as revealing to much personal information in blogs, especially negative information about friends, family, colleges or/and others does tend to jeopardise or cause problems in establishing constructive human relationships interculturally.
Conclusion
It can be seen that social media or digital media is quite an efficient instruments in the development of intercultural communication. Social media or digital media not only provides a space in which people of different cultures can freely express their opinions and establish relationships, but may also challenge the existence of human communication in intercultural contexts because of its specific characteristics that are significantly dissimilar to traditional media.
It can be seen that the impact of social media or digital media on the human society is still in its initial stages, the possible effects of social media on human communication remains dynamic and still lacks systematic studies from scholars. Therefor by the points argued it can be seen that social media or digital media does have its positive side to it but the negative side effects the interpersonal relationship and intercultural communication the most as face-to-face communication is completely cut out so to speak as people would rather be on their phones while being around people and they tend to post everything they do
