As technology evolves, social interactions change

Recognizing and analyzing people's agency in the usage and effects of technology is an important step in understanding our social world. (Humphreys: Cellphones in public, p. 829)

At first, the text "Making Connections: Single Women's Use of the Telephone in Dating Relationships With Men" seemed irrelevant to me. I often asked myself while reading it: "Really? You wrote an entire research article to tell me things that I already know about?" But after thinking about it for a moment, and especially after I read "Cellphones in public: social interactions in a wireless era," I figured how technology, no matter what it is (i.e. cell phone, computer), affects people's interactions and, as a consequence, our social world.

Back in 1993, when Amy Sarch's article "Making Connections" was published, telephone use showed an interesting pattern in women's dating relationships -- that only men were expected to pursue them. The social norm ruled that women could or should not show their interest. That obviously affected how they communicated via phone. Women weren't supposed to call. Women were expected to anxiously and passively sit and wait for the men's attitude. WHat a horrible feeling!

I experienced that during my teenage years, although I must confess that I didn't always sit and wait. :) Perhaps I belong to a generation that started to see things differently, to not accept the norms, and to act more proactively. There's a good chance that the advances in technology contributed to that.

Nowadays, with the newer generations of cell phone and social networking sites, men and women in dating relationships don't need to rely on telephone only to communicate. In fact, most people don't. I have noticed that people who are still seeing each other and/or have just started to go out together will most frequently text message or facebook each other instead of calling. Does it matter who sends the message first? I'm not really sure. Perhaps men are still expected to be more active than women, but that's no longer that big of a problem as far as I can see it. Of course I am speaking from the Western culture perspective and this may not be true in other cultures.

Sarch discusses the social meaning of answering machines on p. 140 -- she says that women would not leave a message when they first reached the answering machine of their dates. After carefully thinking about what their message would be, they would call again and only then leave the "right" message. Nowadays, in an era when couples can can text message and facebook each other, leaving the wrong message is no longer a problem. People can think about what they are going to say and leave the message right away.

So it's interesting to see how technology can bring different types of interactions to our society. And, to me, this is the most important aspect of both readings.

Below is a funny video I found on Vimeo, which shows how people are now often choosing texting over talking... a consequence of technology?