A few weeks ago, a momentous occasion occurred in my household: my parents finally decided to install the internet. My younger siblings were ecstatic. The fact that a wealth of information was now available at the click of a mouse was not what excited them, though; it was the realization that along with the Internet would come the bonus of having America Online’s Instant Messenger (IM).
Our lives have changed. Instead of reading books or playing outside, my brother and sisters are permanently glued to our computer, “chatting” with their friends and acquaintances. The other night, while I was doing research on the web, my younger sister demanded that I let her use the computer, saying she had to “make plans”.
Whatever happened to making a few phone calls?
Situations like this exasperate me. Why form relationships online? Don’t a person’s facial expressions, emotions and tone of voice make up a big part of his or her personality? When I see the TV commercial with the girl saying, “I love having Instant Messenger, it lets me be myself”, I wonder home someone can be herself while hiding behind a computer screen. When did teenagers become so shy that they cannot show their personalities in face-to-face conversation?
I hope our techno society can return to the old forms of communication-talking in person or on the phone. While I still get the “You have got to be kidding me” look from my siblings when I say email instead of IM, I am glad that for me, the personal computer is not a place to form shallow relationships, but one of education and information.
written by: Rita Sádio
Our lives have changed. Instead of reading books or playing outside, my brother and sisters are permanently glued to our computer, “chatting” with their friends and acquaintances. The other night, while I was doing research on the web, my younger sister demanded that I let her use the computer, saying she had to “make plans”.
Whatever happened to making a few phone calls?
Situations like this exasperate me. Why form relationships online? Don’t a person’s facial expressions, emotions and tone of voice make up a big part of his or her personality? When I see the TV commercial with the girl saying, “I love having Instant Messenger, it lets me be myself”, I wonder home someone can be herself while hiding behind a computer screen. When did teenagers become so shy that they cannot show their personalities in face-to-face conversation?
I hope our techno society can return to the old forms of communication-talking in person or on the phone. While I still get the “You have got to be kidding me” look from my siblings when I say email instead of IM, I am glad that for me, the personal computer is not a place to form shallow relationships, but one of education and information.
written by: Rita Sádio
posted by: Isabel Luz
1 comentário:
Sabes que copiar sem indicar a fonte é plágio, não sabes? E que é crime! Este artigo apareceu na revista Teenink e foi republicado num manual de Inglês editado em Portugal.
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