Face-to-Face Conversation: A Solution for Isolation

by Mary Antonette Dagaraga, BMED-1

10:30 - 12:00 TF

Throughout the century where we are living our lives with the presence of technology, we have
admitted that at some point, our lives have become easier. The rise of the technology has great
impact on the existence of mobile devices, like cellphones, tablets and etcetera for it was the most
widely used by people nowadays. Almost everyone in this generation has their own mobile
devices whether it may be the better kind or just the good kind. Thus, based on my own
observation, people are likely using these things improperly wherein they tended to not notice they
are being locked up inside their gadgets instead of choosing to seek for the beauty of life in reality.
One of the worst product of this was the so called "alone together" issue, wherein people are
simply there together on the same place but are actually being bounded by the distance their
gadgets had brought and caused them.

According to Melanie (2018), the advancement of technology has made communication

unbelievably fast and convenient. It’s incredible to look back and see how much easier
communication has gotten over the years. Communication tools offer one of the most significant
examples of how quickly technology has evolved. In the past, writing a letter, sending faxes, or
finding a wired telephone was the best way to communicate remotely with someone. To connect
with someone in society today, you have many more efficient options at your fingertips. You can
send them a message on social media, text them, video chat, email, or put a call through. These
new methods can help you keep in touch with loved ones, especially if you’re aging in place or
living alone.

Although technology has brought us a bright side in the world of communication, it is still not
perfect. People tend to look at it perfectly and ignore its flaws which for sure they are already
aware but still they abuse the usefulness of these devices which effects to people's communication
skills when socializing, it is slowly leading not just "how they act" but rather "who they are" to
terrible darkness most specifically the lack of emotion, ignorance of personal space and somehow
the absence of personal intimacy. The use of technology is good, but this could al;-)so be
misleading once it is being used improperly.

According to Ravitch (2017), a parent rebellion was brewing, because parents want their children
to taught by a human being, not a computer. They fear that their children will be mechanized,
standardized, subjected to depersonalized instruction, not "personalized learning." While many
entrepreneurs are investing to softwares to capture this burgeoning industry, there is still no
evidence that students learn more or better when taught by a computer. People are blinded by the
sudden emerging of technology, which stresses that people are really ignorant of having their lives
easier with technology that often times we chose to just leave everything to technology, even
having your own classes inside the internet using gadgets was already present. Communication
was not being practiced physically and emotionally within us and that people became dependent
with technology.
A person can very easily become addicted to the internet. It is a powerful tool that allows people
to stay in constant contact. Through the internet people are able to play online games,
communicate via social media sites and share whatever they please. Internet addiction can lead to
many strains in relationships. Such as those between children and their families. A child can spend
countless hours on a computer, all the while the child may be communicating with friends, but no
real socializing is being accomplished. All the time spent on a computer takes away from family
time as well as physical and other engaging activities. A study found that increased use of the
internet led to loneliness and inhibited ability to manage time. Thus, it’s important to limit your
time spent on the internet, (Sole, 2019).

According to Turkle (2012), people are accustomed to a new way of being "alone together" where
it was technology-enabled, people are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected
to wherever they want to be. People want to customize their lives. They want to move in and out
of where they are because the thing they value most is control over where they focus their
attention. People have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of loyal to their own party. For
example, when your friend invited you to go to an outing, everything goes well in the event but
then he or she was busy scrolling in his/her phone. You can see how bad it works for even we are
constantly physically present together but we ended up hiding from one another, because mostly,
the famous trends nowadays is taking a picture on a particular event or something, wearing a very
big smile in ones faces but actually what happened in this matter is that those people were literally
not enjoying the outing, lead to boredom. Laziness, boredom, sadness, fear and hopelessness, for
me, these are the following main products of being too much with our technological devices,
specifically mobile gadgets accessible to the internet. People do not want to feel alone or isolated
that is why they seek for attention, care, comfort inside the tiny device not realizing they've got
this whole world around them and a lot of people to talk with, to share experiences of joy, sorrow
and whatever they want to talk about, people are afraid to be alone but they still chose to. They
chose to, because nowadays they knew that if they try to open up, they are going to be neglected
by others a part of knowing they have the same mindset as them.

According to Turkle again, in today's workplaces, young people who have grown up fearing
conversation show up on the job wearing earphones. Walking through a college library or the
campus of high-tech start-up, one sees the same thing, "we are together, but each of us is in our
bubble, furiously connected to keyboards and tiny touch screens. This indicates that people are
only connected with other people through the use of their gadgets, which means that conversation
or communication occurs inside their devices and not that they are physically interacting with each
other. This seemed to be a very bad result for me, because as we are continuing this thing, we are
not practicing our mouth to speak, most especially we might not be able to express ourselves and
how we literally feel towards others and stuffs because we can actually choose to show other
people what we want them to see us rather than who we really are for we can always delete or edit
the mistakes we typed or whatsoever and even with the usage of emojis and positive-negative
words that we unfortunately do not know whether or not the person was telling, expressing the
truth about his/her feelings and anything or not. Face-to-face conversation is very essential,
because that's how you know a person, through his/her contacts, gestures, actions, words that are
not filtered many times and etcetera.

How many times has an email been misunderstood, misread or perceived by another party to be
rude when that wasn ’ t the intention? Face-to-face conversations minimise the risk of
miscommunication, promoting more effective business practices. Sometimes encouraging
face-to-face interactions can be as simple as persuading others to walk down the corridor rather
than sending an email. The importance of real conversations, in real time and real rooms, should
never be underestimated. (Mercola; Hays; Fast Company and The Grossman Group, 2016)

According to Grossman (2019), communicating face-to-face sends a message before you say a
word. People will not only hear what you are saying, they will perceive the greater meaning of
your tone, voice inflection, emotion and body language. Taking the time to meet and chat with
employees is an important way to emphasis key messages as well as reiterate and expand upon
ideas expressed in other channels. In other words, face-to-face conversation is very effective in
terms of many positive things, especially because when you are face to face, you can see and
respond to people’s reactions like facial expressions and body language as well as their tone of
voice. While according to the Ashton College (2019), adding the“personal touch”of face-to-face
communication is much more important to those dealing with outside clients and stakeholders. A
sense of community comes with the ability to interact and socialize. This sets the foundation for
trust, and ultimately creates a better working relationship.

Face-to-face conversation conveys trust from one another and enables people to have greater
understanding, because he/she can see how the other person was being sincere about what he/she
is talking. In short, face-to-face conversation is one of the best solution to this "isolation" problem.

But just remember, technology has only made it more visible. You still have the choice to do what
you will with it and with the accessibility we have today, you can magnify your impact beyond
what the greats of the centuries past were ever able to do, (Svetski, 2017). The world nowadays
may be full of temptation and trickery but let this not cover the eyes of our hearts and minds to
look for a great hope that even if it is not easy to start a good chain reaction, we can still try and
try to begin a single step. We all have choices to make a difference, it's up to us if what difference
are we going to take. Could it be the hopeless side of the picture or the hopeful side?

Reference:
Ashton College.(2019).The importance of face-to-face communication. Retrieved December 14,
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AegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0ZAkeErpCCzRLACn_15n8_

Fast Company; Hays; Mercola & The Grossman Group.(2016).The importance of face-to-face
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Grossman, D.(2019). Face-to-face communication: 6 reasons to lead in person. Your thought

partner. Retrieved: December 14, 2019 from:
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Melanie.(2018).Technology in our life today and how it has changed. Aging in place. Retrieved:
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Ravitch, D. (2017). 5 risk posed by the increasing misuse of technology in schools. EdSurge.
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Sole, B.(2016).How technology has change the way we communicate. The skills portal. Retrieved:
December 14, 2019 from:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.skillsportal.co.za/content/how-technology-has-changed-way
-we-communicate%3famp

Svetski, A. (2017). Technology changes but people stay the same. Mission.org. Retrieved:
December 14, 2019 from: https://www.google.com/amp/s/medium.com/amp/p/f2d5b903b81d

Turkle, S.(2012).The flight of conversation. The New York Times, Sunday review, opinion.
Retrieved: December 12, 2019 from:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html