Technology Can’t Replace Real Human Interactions

In the age of Facebook and Twitter, people operate on the unquestioned assumption that technology is always good. However, this assumption keeps people from considering how technology is affecting them and if it is actually improving relationships or hindering them.

Because technology is so well-supported, I would like to raise a dissenting voice that while technology is enabling people to speak to more people and quicker, it is not improving the quality of relationships but actually facilitating their disintegration. This is especially true for young people.

First, human beings need direct human interaction. Reports show that infants who have lots of interaction and contact with their parents and other people are healthier than those that don’t. What is good for people when they are young is no less good at any age: People still need direct human interaction.

The problem with technology is that it is enabling people to hide behind text messages, e-mails, cell phones, and social networks instead of directly communicating. This means that interactions are limited and mediated through technology. It is a lot easier to cause harm, or not realize the effects of one’s actions, when the eyes of those hurt are unseen. This results in a desensitized population.

An extreme example is dropping bombs from drones on people who will never be seen. I will never forget a wise Navajo lady who told me that if I was unwilling to kill an animal in person, I had no business eating meat. Similarly, if people are unwilling to communicate or do something in person they probably shouldn’t be doing it.

Second, it is becoming harder and harder to motivate children (and people in general) to go play outside. Instead of interacting with other children and learning to socialize, children prefer to stay inside playing video games, watching TV, and Facebooking.

Reports indicate that children who play outside tend to be happier and better socially adjusted. Playing outside in the sunshine invites young people to see that they are part of something that is big and beyond them or their living room. Staying within an enclosed room encourages young people’s minds to remain in that room and not venture beyond its walls.

Clubs have now been established throughout the country to get kids out to play. This is astounding since in previous generations it was near impossible for children to stay inside their homes.

Now it has become such a chore that people have to pay someone to take their children outside. This results in youth who have limited social interactions and thus fail to learn that all relationships are give and take, that everything they do will impact someone else. Playing in nature is a great way of teaching consequences because they are always occurring in nature.

Third, television is an example of technology that is disintegrating relationships by providing constant repetition of images of how people are “supposed” to look and act. An astonishing example: In 1995, TV was introduced to the island nation of Fiji, and it was found that only 3 percent of young girls in Fiji reported having eating disorders. In 2000, five years later, a Harvard report shows that eating disorders increased to 15 percent.

The influence of TV changed the view of Fijians on what constitutes beauty and led to the tripling of eating disorders. American youth have been under this influence their whole lives and in some cases so has their primary caregiver.

For five years I taught wilderness survival in Arizona to youth who have made bad decisions. The most powerful therapy was removing young people from their everyday lives and placing them in groups in nature. Once they were removed from the influence of technology, I witnessed thousands of young people connect with others and deeply consider what they needed to do to improve their lives.

Changes came rapidly and on their own. They realized that every action has a consequence (if you don’t hike to water, you get thirsty). The most interesting part of their time with us was the car ride back to Phoenix as the lights began to glow brighter and the billboards started to appear.

The young people who had been away from technology were speechless as they saw its presence coming back into their lives.

Brett Stephenson grew up in Murray and Salt Lake and is studying conflict resolution at George Mason University in Arlington, Va.