Social Media Sabotaging Communication

960 Words4 Pages
The use of electronic communication has overtaken face-to-face and voice-to-voice communication by a wide margin. Behind the cloak of texting, email or Facebook, you can create the illusion of being anyone you wish, and conveying an emotion or feeling you wish to portray to the public. No one can tell what you’re doing or feeling on the other side of the computer. Conclusions are drawn on frighteningly little information. Susan Tardanico provides an effective argument in her essay “Is Social Media Sabotaging Real Communication?” because, as human beings, our only real method of connection is through authentic communication. The situation that Tardanico was trying to explain is “Sharon Seline exchanged text messages with her daughter who was in college. They ‘chatted' back and forth, mom asking how things were going, and daughter answering with positive statements followed by emoticons showing smiles, b-i-g smiles and hearts." (Tardanico 1)Using emoticons and smiley faces her daughter gave the impression all was well, because she was hiding behind the screen. Clearly this illustrates Tardanico point, "as later that evening this seemingly normal teen had attempted suicide." Not all was well. Tardanico illustrates the point that in this time and age with all the communication mediums available to us, we tend to communicate less and less on a personal level. The purpose of this article is to show that decisions are based on a minimal amount of information provided via social media. “Businesses handle most of all business on an email basis now, which is included, how the tone of the email is "perceived" by the reader all influence decisions made as a result of it.” (Tardanico 2) "The speed and geographic dispersion of business, and the lack of comfort with traditional interpersonal communication among a growing segment of our employee population: Generation Y and

More about Social Media Sabotaging Communication

Open Document