Technology has made people more anti-social and stupid

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I'm 18 and I've noticed this since I was 7. Once Cell Phones and stuff got huge I could see how Anti-social everyone has become. People breaking up over text messages or FaceBook relationship statuses cause they're too cowardly to do it in person. Everyone is glued to their phones/tablets nowadays, everywhere I walk in college people are huddled around power outlets charging their phones as they use them and they don't even care if they block the way.
Cyber bullying came into existence and I find it to be a joke, unless someone is actually doing things like posting pictures/videos of you that you did not give consent to like nudes there is nothing to kill yourself over. I tend to laugh off cyber bullies cause they wouldn't try doing it in person.
I noticed I people only talk to me if they want something from me. People that don't even bother to ask for my name and yet constantly ask me for things. A lot more narcissistic and psychopathic behavior is being seen from people in real life, people respond with violence or aggressive tones a lot more quickly and irrationally nowadays and walk all over the feelings of others. The Little Red Hen definitely represents todays society. I used to be ignored or treated badly soon as I had something people wanted they tried to be my "friend" and expect me to magically forget all they did to me. At the rate I'm progressing in entrepreneurial skills its going to be fun seeing people that spat at me in the past regret it.

Too many stupid fads on the internet like the Fire Challenge. An 11 year old set himself on fire and got severe burns just because he saw other people on facebook do it. If the kid died I wouldn't shed a single tear, it's nothing more than natural selection doing its job. Things are only getting to get worse as the new generation of parents place a mobile device in their kids hand the minute they cry, we already have toddlers that can use iphones but still can't count past 3 or know their ABCs. Steve Jobs was a smart man for not letting his kids use his products he knew this would happen.

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Yes.
People are becoming more narcissistic and psychopathic just because its stylish thing to be. It is over shadowing the folks that actually want or seeking help.

The selfie song is the sign of the times and people do not have to conform. I had to learn the hard way to drop the FB and video game addiction. Allot can be learned and achieved by creating something or finding your own happiness with out the constant attention of other people.

rubbish. People are more narcissistic but people are more hypersocial than ever. All that's changed is how we socialise. There is no proven correlation between gross iq and technology. Again the just adapts to different consumption methods

They said the same things about TV, radio, and even writing.

Technology has its upside and downside. It has changed behaviour patterns, certainly, though it's too big a leap for me to suppose technology as the sole cause of the increasing proportion of narcissists in society. Narcissism is a personality disorder - and a pretty nasty one - usually with its roots going way back into early childhood.

However narcissism in celebrity culture (typified by the Kardashians for example) is a powerful source of social learning, influencing people with no previous pathology, particularly young people and especially if they are insecure and still working out their identity - as most young people are at some stage. What I find very odd about Kim Kardashian is that she parades her extreme narcissism as though it was a personal achievement rather than a frank psychological disorder, and that she is admired for her bizarre self-admiration.. it says something very strange about the times and culture we are now living in.

I do agree that technology has normalised behaviours that were not long ago considered to be very unacceptable: interrupting a conversation to answer a phone for example, as if the person you are with is of lesser importance than yourself and your caller. I still find that rude, unless there are compelling reasons for it. It's a form of everyday narcissism you could say, not the personality disorder kind or exhibitionist Kardashian kind, though a distant cousin which is still potentially toxic to healthy relationships...

A lot of people are "wannabe-socialites" these days(but think they're real ones) because of their stupid wireless devices, and often act stuck-up as a result.

I don't think technology is a problem if people know how to use it properly and politely, and teach their kids the same.

I believe the problem goes back to parenting...for a few generations now. Many kids have been "raised by" (learned behavior and attitudes) from other kids and technology rather than adults.

As far as the phone goes, I don't think taking a phone call during a conversation is rude unless the person keeps on talking to the caller as if the caller had not interrupted anything. Back in the day before answering machines, it was kind of necessary to answer the phone when it rang. If you were in the middle of something, you would just tell the caller you would call them back (unless it was a situation that needed immediate attention.) That same thoughtfulness can be extended to the use of cell phones. It is similar to answering a knock at the door when company is over. You don't know if that person knocking represents an urgent situation or not, so you should answer the door, even when someone is over. Then, act appropriately.

It could also be caused by the improper use of antidepressants. The accepted chemical imbalance for depression only affects a little less than 25% of those depressed. Those who aren't depressed and are given drugs to rebalance the dopamine, serotonin, and/or norepinephrine, (or possibly other chemicals) has been shown to increase impulsive, antisocial, and narcissistic behaviors in individuals.

There is a correlation between memory and technology use at young ages. The researchers claimed that it is because the human brain would rather remember the location of the information for retrieval rather than the information itself and is more likely to remember something if it thinks that the information will become scarce. When the brain is developing, especially in the younger years, if information is both readily accessible at any time, the brain is suspected not to be as likely to expect information to become scarce and so information is discarded.

There are also many correlations showing that video gamers have increased IQ, spatial reasoning, and literacy rates, especially for those who play retro games.

I once broke up with a guy who then told me that he preferred that I did that by text message/skype and even thought that was a reasonable thing for me to know/to expect from me... he himself apparently rejected/broke up with girls by text message only to wonder why he's being seen as a coward >_<

Is it because people become hard-hearted or because of technology or because of some other factor, or all three?



A phone at my own house is different than if I am out with someone- and people answer their cellphones everywhere and anywhere, no matter what the occasion. Not only is it maddening, the behvaior is absolutely mind-boggling. If I was at home, answering a landline is different. It is my home and people expect to reach me there. I say "excuse me, let me see who it is and take a message" and do so.

If I am outside of the house and at a movie theatre, at any kind of appointment, out eating or drinks with a friend, at someone else's house, unless I really am expecting an important phone call, a relative is in the hospital, etc? My phone goes off. People went a long time without cellphones, I can go a few hours without mine.

It is different than a knock on the door because the person who is knocking on the door physically came to your door, and you can't just "turn off your house" because you have company.

But, yes, it's rude. Going to meet someone and then interrupting the time they have put aside for you and that you have supposedly put aside to spend with them to answer a phone call [with the above exceptions] is rude. Keeping your phone on the table is rude. Texting during this time, checking facebook, checking your mail, rude.

As well, talking on the phone in line at the store while someone is trying to wait one you- super rude.

I would tend to agree with Lazarus on this.

Do you mean antisocial as in just avoiding face-to-face social interaction? Because technically someone who is antisocial acts in a way that disregards social rules and norms, including laws, and usually it refers to those who are aware of the fact that they are doing so and simply do not care. Usually these people are referred to as sociopaths, psychopaths or as having antisocial personality disorder (which are pretty much synonymous).

If the social norm is to communicate through electronics and let cell phones take priority over direct conversation then it isn't technically antisocial, it's just stupid. A truly antisocial person doesn't have a desire for social connection of any kind (often they actively avoid it), and they don't really interact with others unless it provides some benefit to them. Pretty much anyone who is really crazy about all the social media and texting and such would not fit that description, because the whole reason they are doing those things is for social connection. They are just taking the lazy route as far as interaction goes. The impersonal nature of the interaction makes it easier for them to make a lot of "friends" and thus makes them feel better about themselves. That's my take on it anyway.

So I don't think it's accurate to say there is more psychopathic or sociopathic behavior necessarily; also, it is pretty contradictory to talk about how bad it is that people are behaving in a supposedly antisocial way, and then to immediately afterwards say that if these people died you wouldn't care at all, because it's "just natural selection". I agree that there is a ton of totally unnecessary and stupid behavior that happens in the majority of the population, and that it is getting worse, but that doesn't mean that they need to die.

Technology really has no connection to whether a person is antisocial. Although it has its downsides, like giving parents a way to ignore their kids, it also has its upsides, like giving fourteen-year-olds something to do besides running around practicing being criminals. In the end, modern tech is just a series of tools to get work done or communicate or entertain.

People are getting dumber by the minute.
They are turning the abilities of the brain over to a system intelligence that will "think" for them.
The hive mind.

I don't think technology has made people themselves more stupid. I do believe that the 'herd mentality' of social media has made people more stupid collectively.