Does Technology Change Relationships?

Photo by Nam Nguyen

Technology: the one thing used to connect anyone from anywhere. These days, people rely on technology (social media, video chatting, texting, calling, etc) to stay in contact with each other at all hours of the day. This has gotten to be so bad that people now text each other so that their friends can open the door; whatever happened to something called the doorbell? Regardless, technology is currently a necessity for a relationship to survive, especially for those who are in college and need to communicate with their friends and family, but does it get to the point that technology starts changing relationships? By relationships, I’m not only talking about the relationship between a girlfriend and a boyfriend, but also the relationship between family members and other close friends. For us college students living on campus, we are dependent on technology and the amount we use it. We’re always talking to our friends and our parents, and that wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for the various types of communication.

Unfortunately, this can sometimes cause discrepancies in numerous relationships. For one, you use your phone and/or social media to communicate with everyone, so the significance of using it to talk to that “special” person goes down because while you’re texting a valued person, you’re texting 10 other people at the same time. Although technology is necessary to keep a relationship like this alive, it just makes it a little less “special.” Does that mean a relationship cannot work? No, it can. I’m not saying it’s an issue, but maybe that’s one of the reasons why technology does change relationships.

Moreover, you use technology so often to communicate with each other that when you’re actually in front of each other, things get awkward since there’s not much to talk about. It doesn’t happen to many relationships, but when it does, it does change them from the way they were once perceived. I’m sure I’m not the one who has texted someone continuously and then was silently dragged into a face-to-face conversation like this:

Person: Hey!! It’s nice finally seeing you!

Me: Oh hey, yeah it is. How are you?

Person: Good, how are you?

Me: I’m doing well.

Person: Oh cool…..

Me: *When will this be over………?*

You get to the point where it’s uncomfortable not talking over technology and communicating in person. It’s like discovering that there’s a world outside of your phone.

Lastly, most people have a social networking site, whether it may be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Kik (whatever that is, really), or anything else, but those sites are used to keep in touch with friends and family members. The thing is that you’re different than how you are on social media. Most of your 800+ friends on Facebook are not with you 24/7 or even a couple days out of the week, so they don’t know how you are outside of the social networking site. In other words, they don’t know how you are in your natural habitat—that habitat where you’re stinky, weird, filthy, but people stalking you may never know that. Perks of having an online profile, by the way.

Technology is a great way to stay in touch, don’t get me wrong, but maybe it has a great hand in how relationships change or how they get awkward, and again, this doesn’t happen to everyone. Sometimes, you just have to find a balance.