Friday Panel: Is Technology Weakening Interpersonal Relationships?

Intro   #ipr  #technologyweakrelationships
Did you know that 1 in 5 divorce cases directly quote Facebook, most common reasons including inappropriate sexual chats?

This panel sounded promising - how is technology affecting us professionally and personally, and perhaps was optimistic that children would be mentioned. After all, young people are the most prolific users of technology. This, in conjunction with the fact that their use is not sophisticated, maybe should have merited more attention than it did.

No, I felt that this was a relatively biased panel on the impact of Facebook on divorce and other such useful factoids.'Factoid' because the reality of 1 in 5 couples as a primary reason for divorce is a fact. Citing Facebook as a cause is a factoid. It disallows consideration of use of technology as a means of avoidance, an outcome of existing dysfunction and so on rather than a cause.

'And 'biased' because the positive impact of technology was barely mentioned. Research shows young people feel much more connected and would feel isolated if they did not have their multiple connections to others via SNs, IM, texts etc.

Am I missing something here? Happy to be corrected! Perhaps I should be more generous and just conclude that the panel title was simply too general and needed a tweek?

The blurb
By referencing research in Communication studies, we will examine the role of technology within interpersonal relationships. Specifically, we will analyze negatives and positives in three distinct relational categories: professional, familial, and romantic. This would be an academic panel to educate an audience about the potential repercussions of always being ''online.''



The presenters
Corinne Weisgerber      PhD St Edward’s Uni
Ashley Brown               Jones-DIworth (A PR company. Research on interpersonal organisation)
Jenn Deering Davis       PhD Uni. Of Texas, Austin
Matthew Weber           Uni of Southern California