Saturday, March 28, 2009
Pen Pal's
Technology has obviously affected communicaton, making it easier to communicate long distances, but also, in a way, preventing direct encounters with people. With that said, should people have pen pals? Or considering that technology often gets in the way of having actual conversations, would it just be better to have friends that you could actually see on a normal basis?
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I have friends in other countries, whcih makes me glad that technology is so much improved. Sure, sometimes life gets hectic and we don't communicate as often as we might if we wrote letters, but at the same time, it's a lot quicker. I have one friend who lives in Washington state and one who lives in Alberta, Canada. And I like being able to send them emails and text messages because it's much faster and sure, sometimes it's annoying because of the time difference, but letters I feel would be like an obligation. Not to mention the expenses! So they might not be technically "pen pals" since I never use a pen to talk to them, but I enjoy learning about how different their lives are and stuff. I wouldn't want to just be friends with people I see on a daily basis because honestly, that limits my social circle a WHOLE LOT! We might not talk as much, but when we do we can always just catch each other up on stuff.
I think it's ok to be friends with people that you can't see face to face, like a pen pal or something like that. However, there should be a balance. You should be able to have a face-to-face with some of the people that you communicate with through technology. It's not always possible to talk face-to-face, so technology does help there. As long as technology doesn't take complete control, I think it’s fine.
In elementary school we had pen pals, and it was so exciting to get letters from that person. I also wrote to my friend who moved away to NH, and even though we wrote too long of letters to hand-write them, the letters were still so personalized with the pictures we drew on the paper and the envelopes. After our lives got busier, we didn't have time to write letter. Of course we both have a Facebook where we post things every now and then, and we sometimes text each other, but it's not the same as the letters we used to write and I definitely miss that alot. I guess I just have to compromise the frequent letters filled with stories and things going on in her life, with the less frequent, but even more personal phone calls. So in that respect, technology helps our friendship. But through texts and Facebook, our conversations and interactions are much less personal, therefore we don't use those methods often.
I tried to be pen pals with a friend from PA, but it was impossible for me to keep writing back and forth because of laziness. Texting and facebook is a lot more easier to communicate. I even do webcam which is way better than writing letters. I mean writing letters IS fun and more exciting, but if I needed a answer asap, I would do texting.
Pen Pals is an awesome idea that someone came up with to link two people together through words. I think pen pals are cool because you can't see the person, you can't judge them on appearance or race or sex, you can only read the words they write. I think this makes it even more real and when you meet them its awesome. Yeah, technology has taken away a lot of face to face interation but we still have it. It just makes it easier to get in touch. I know its easier for me to send a text then pick up the phone and call someone. And pen pals from other countries and states are awesome because you compare and contrast things from your different cultures and its just cool all around.
Pen pals are a great way to see how others live, and find someone who shares your interests. I would think that talking to people in online chat rooms is an updated version of pen-pal-ing, and that is not going away. The only negative thing I see about this is that it may connect likeminded people who want to cause chaos and destruction to the world and its people. For the most part, chat room s/forums are a good way to find others like you, which is nice if you live in a place where you’re the black sheep.
I think that a mix of everything is important. Communicating and interacting with people face to face is extremely important in your life, but I don't see any problems with having friends that are far away.
For example, my boyfriends mother is from Poland and her sister still lives there and everyday for a few hours they talk using a web cam. Therefore they can see each others reactions and tell the inflection that they really meant when they talk. They laugh the whole night away. And it's important to both of them. Before web cams were easily assessable they would use phone cards to interact with each outer spending hundreds a week just to talk to each other. So personally technology is now at the point where it's helping people come together and interact as normally as possible. Technology has definitely come along way with making interacting more personal since the hand written letter. With all the technology now we can communicate halfway across the country and i know that everyone can appreciate that.
I think having friends on a normal basis is great but pen pals shouldn't be banned either. I have a lot of friends that don't live in East Brunswick and it's hard to keep in touch with them. But thanks to technology, I can still see what's going on and message them whenever I want to. I also have family who live in Korea and if it wasn't for technology, I would seriously never ever talk to them. I see pictures they put up and we leave each other messages.
As long as we don't use technology for everything, it shouldn't be that big of a problem. If we can physically talk to people then that's great. There's no need to constantly use technology to talk to people we see almost every day.
Technology has definitely helped us keep in touch with people from far away, but I think that knowing we can always contact someone (ex. through Facebook or Skype) makes us lazy. Knowing that these programs are always there, we are much less likely to spend time with the person or actually visit them. Technology is great so you know the person is always there if you would like to talk, but it has taken away from the way people used to write long letters, talk on the phone for hours, or travel long distances to visit a person who is truly important to them.
I know very few people from other countries and although I think penpals are cool and nice way to learn about other people's cultures I don't really agree with the whole thing online like e-mail pen pals I was always told never to trust anyone one online unless you like know them personally. With all the new technology now though rarely does anyone write letters now its all e-mails and texting I'm not saying having a penpal is a bad thing though but really how can you trust someone you don't know online? They could say they're your age send you fake pictures but for all you know you cold be talking to some 40 year old man/woman or older and they could be some dangerous sex offender you never know it. Why would anyone want to meet up with someone they met on the internet is beyond me but anyone agree with me here that the internet is not to be trusted?
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