Does technology make us more alone?  

         The big question circling around people's heads does technology make us more alone? People can have a lot of different opinions about this topic. There are obviously both sides to this topic that I will address. Technology can provide many opportunities for various social interactions but can also take away the in-person aspect.

A big reason why people might think that technology makes people more alone is because people might do everything on their phones or laptops including contacting people through Facetime or messages. From that aspect, it might make people more lonely because if you are communicating with everyone through technology you might not have as many in-person interactions, which can lead to you being more lonely. Being extremely addicted to technology and always posting even if you post one video or talk to anyone you can get cyberbullied. There are very many cyberbullies online that make a lot of people have a negative impact on social media. That can make you feel lonely because if you get a lot of hate online it might feel like not a lot of people care about you. Being glued to technology can make you addicted to it, and spend way too much time on it. It's very easy to get glued to technology through many different things. You can get addicted to social media or games on your phone. It's very easy to open TikTok and just scroll on your phone for hours. By doing that it can increase your loneliness because you are spending a big amount of time on technology 

There aren't only negative aspects to technology making us more lonely.  There are many reasons why technology makes us not feel alone. There are many platforms including Twitter and Facebook, Instagram and messaging apps that allow people to contact each other. I know I mentioned this earlier how by doing this people might not have as many in-person interactions. But you can communicate with people on these apps on top of meeting up in person. Another way that technology not only makes you feel not lonely but makes you feel even more surrounded by people who care about you is through community groups. On social media platforms, for example, Instagram, there are groups online for people who love travel or any other interest. Having access to be able to communicate online in my eyes Is a big bonus. Technology is so advanced you can easily call anyone on video from across the world. Knowing that is an option is super nice to hear. 

There have been many studies that have looked at the relationships between technology and loneliness and there are mixed results. Some researchers show that the use of social media can improve social connections and some show that it may lead to loneliness. I personally think it enhances social connections because there are so many platforms where you can communicate by messaging or video calls. In this Ezine, I will be discussing more about this and the digital world. The aspects of the digital world I will be talking about are technology addictions, digital citizenship, connectivity and the double-edged nature.