The Era of Technology and the Dead of Socialization as we know it?

The era of rapid technological advancement has held the world spellbound. For those who lived in a period when socialization was thought to be the process through which humans developed the skills to function as acceptable members of society, and that through socialization we could have a true learning experience, one in which not only biology but the environment also determined our culture and how we survived as human beings. No one I believe ever thought of the effect technology would have on us humans. I can attest and sincerely too, without an iota of doubt, that socialization as we knew it is slowly but surely evolving or could I say dead? Our social systems as we know them are gradually being taken over by monsters we hardly recognize. Now we are in a new epoch, a period when we have to reexamine what we generalized in the past as making sense which no longer makes sense.

While I really do love technology, I am beginning to think that the rate at which it is changing my life seems threatening indeed.  Nonetheless I find irresistible the nanoseconds it takes for me to communicate with my relatives in the interiors of Africa. In the past I use to go to the post office to send a mail to my mom and then have to wait weeks to get her reply that is, if no one ripped open the mail before it got to her. I am sure I would not like to go back to that! Nowadays I can get answers to my queries without even leaving the comfort of my bed by simply browsing from my phone. Though I know I have put on a few pounds ever since these “make-life-easy days” it makes no sense getting out of my comfort zone if I can avoid it. I assume I really adore life this way, and I am persuaded there are few people who don’t. Nevertheless I can’t help worrying at what price will we be getting all these easy days?

Yet while I am so amazed, I still know this high tech world still beats my imagination. My kids see their homework as a bore prefer to spend a lot of time on tinny gadgets that do amazing things, and tells me if they don’t watch television they might make A’s but would be social misfits. I know their definition of socialization is definitely not what I thought all these years it was. I keep on wondering why schools are not incorporating these new changes into their curricula to make learning more adaptive to the rapid changes we are now observing in our children’s world. So if you asked me, I would clearly state that technology is gradually but steadily establishing new relationships, but unfortunately not between humans, but between humans and high-tech gadgets in which we have buried our lives. We can unquestionably say goodbye to socialization and our society as we knew it, and welcome this new monster that we are just beginning to know.