Tero International, Inc. Your Elite Training Team
Tero International, Inc. Your Elite Training Team
The 21st century has witnessed rapid advancements in digital technologies, profoundly transforming all aspects of modern society. The widespread adoption of these technologies is now commonly referred to as "living in a digital world," a phrase that reflects how deeply digital media has become a part of our daily lives, shaping the way we communicate, work, and socialize. This article specifically examines how digital technologies impact people's socialization and social skills.
The term digital world describes how our lives are increasingly governed and coordinated by various digital media or electronic communication devices.
J.Lengsfeld defines the digital world term as:
"… the totality of circumstances that characterize the living conditions in the digital age, which will be significantly shaped by a multitude of digital technologies."
Multiple digital media technologies, such as the internet, smartphones, social media, mobile apps, artificial intelligence, and other platforms, are accessed through electronic connections. Digital media enables us to create, share, and retrieve information with unprecedented ease and has become an essential part of our lives. A famous psychologist, Godfrey Reggio, has aptly stated the role of technology in modern life.
"It's not that we use technology, we live technology."
This quote signifies that digital media has a profound influence on all aspects of our daily lives, experiences, thinking, and behavior. Although digital media is highly beneficial, it also has unintended negative consequences, particularly on people's social skills, which are critical for personal, academic, and professional success.
Social skills, also known as interpersonal skills, are acquired competencies that help individuals establish effective relationships. According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, "Social skills are a set of learned abilities that enable an individual to interact competently and appropriately in a given social context."
Examples include active listening, empathy, verbal and nonverbal communication, conflict resolution, negotiation, collaboration, leadership, and giving and receiving feedback. These skills are essential for developing emotional intelligence, achieving career success, and maintaining healthy personal relationships.
In an increasingly digital and globalized world, these skills are more valuable than ever for building collaborations. Psychologist Ronald Riggio emphasizes their importance, stating that social skills "empower people to initiate, develop, and maintain communication or relationships with other people." However, in recent decades, there appears to be a decline in social skills. Thus, it has become crucial to understand how digital technology affects social skills.
The increased reliance on digital media has significantly impacted social skills. Texting and messaging have become the preferred means of communication over face-to-face conversations, resulting in fewer opportunities to demonstrate empathy and a decreased reliance on verbal and nonverbal cues. Many authors, especially John Locke in his book, "The De-voicing of Society: Why We Don't Talk to Each Other," have expressed these concerns. In daily lives, people are used to expressions such as:
"I feel weird making phone calls—texting just feels easier." High School Student.
Mother of teenagers says, "We're all in the same house texting each other instead of talking face-to-face."
While digital platforms enable instant connections and gratification, they often lack the emotional depth of in-person interactions. Multiple research studies have demonstrated the detrimental effects of excessive digital media use on individuals' mental and social well-being, providing empirical evidence of this growing concern.
A recent Gallup Poll involving more than 1,500 American teenagers found that 51% of U.S. teenagers spend at least four hours per day on multiple social media apps, including YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X. Although usage was higher among girls than among boys, both sexes experienced equally high levels of depression associated with digital media use.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt states that as youth spend less time with each other in person and more time online, their social skills deteriorate, leading to increased levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.
In her book "iGen" (2017), psychologist Jean M. Twenge documented a significant decline in face-to-face interactions among those born between 1995 and 2012. Twenge also describes the iGen generation as less confident, more uncertain, and more anxious than Millennials. The author attributes this to the increased time spent on digital media.
Additionally, a global study on adolescents' well-being showed a decline in their mental health starting around 2012, which coincided with the rise in smartphone use and increased internet access. According to Adam Hoffman of Cornell University, social connections are crucial to human development. While social media can enhance relationships, it cannot replace face-to-face communication.
These multiple research findings underscore the importance of investigating how digital technologies affect social skills.
Numerous digital media factors impact social skills, including people's communication habits, emotional sensitivities, and interpersonal etiquette. Some of the most critical factors are as follows:
The overuse and continuous dependence on social media platforms deprive users of crucial verbal and non-verbal cues, such as voice tone, facial expressions, body language, and conversational turn-taking. These cues are essential for developing and maintaining effective social interaction.
Patricia Greenfield, a developmental psychologist at UCLA, states: "Decreased sensitivity to emotional cues—losing the ability to understand the emotions of other people—is one of the costs. The displacement of in-person social interaction by screen interaction seems to be reducing social skills." (UCLA.edu)
Supporting this claim, a 2014 study by Uhls et al. found that children who spent five days without screen exposure showed significant improvement in their ability to recognize nonverbal emotional cues, compared to peers who continued typical digital device use (ScienceDirect.com).
Additionally, a study by Twenge et al. 2017 linked increased screen time to lower levels of psychological well-being, including reduced social engagement (ScienceDirect.com).
While digital messaging, texting, and the use of emojis may simplify communication, these methods also limit the understanding of complex social behaviors.
Social scientist Emily Drago asserts that digital technology has a negative impact on both the quality and frequency of face-to-face communication. Her study reported that over 62% of individuals observed continued using their mobile devices even in the presence of others, thereby weakening direct, person-to-person conversations.
Constantly switching between apps, messages, and notifications on digital devices can impair concentration, making it difficult to engage in sustained and meaningful social interactions.
Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS.ORG) demonstrated that heavy media multitaskers performed worse on tasks requiring focused attention, cognitive flexibility, and skills essential for active conversational competence.
Online anonymity limits exposure to others' emotional reactions, which can hinder the development of empathic skills. Research by Konrath, O'Brien, and Hsing found that college students in the U.S. scored 40% lower on measures of empathy than their counterparts 30 years ago, correlating the trend with increased digital media use.
Social media platforms often use algorithms to filter content in alignment with a user's existing beliefs, values, and preferences. While this personalization increases engagement, it reduces exposure to diverse views, thus lessening social tolerance and weakening the skills necessary for cooperation and collaboration.
In the book "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You," Eli Pariser demonstrates that this lack of diversity in social interactions narrows worldviews and contributes to a decline in open-mindedness and empathy.
The increasing reliance on non-human conversational interfaces—such as Siri, Alexa, and ChatGPT—is contributing to a decline in social norms and interpersonal etiquette. A study by Nass and Moon, titled "Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers," found that humans unconsciously apply social expectations to computers. However, these interactions lack reciprocity and emotional authenticity, which are essential parts of meaningful human communication. Over time, such one-sided interactions may hinder the development of genuine social skills.
In modern society, the atrophy of social skills is a growing concern, particularly due to the widespread use of digital media. Digital technologies are significantly impacting cultural, psychological, and sociological aspects, transforming how people interact and communicate with one another.
However, as reliance on digital media increases, there is a noticeable decline in people's essential social skills. While the digital world offers clear benefits, it shouldn't come at the cost of human relationships. To succeed in the digital age, we must strike a balance between adopting technology and upholding social skills.
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