Computers are damaging social skills - negative.?

Question

soo...

i;m in a debating team...

we are the negative team for this topic.

the topic is that computers are damaging social skills.

anything you think we could talk about?

Answer 1

There was an interesting debate on a similar subject over at The Economist - in particular relating to social networking and education. They were basically arguing whether social networking was a positive or negative influence.... the positive argument won so you mind get some useful information there.

http://www.economist.com/debate/index.cf...

Answer 2

I think there are strong arguments for both sides.

Computers are damaging social skills in many ways.

1.  Decreased spelling ability for the average student, and over usage of acronyms (I'm at the crotchety old age of 24 and had all of this omfg, lmfao, ttyl B.S.)

2.  Less direct social interaction.  This is much more legit than my complain in the first point.  When people come together socially and interact, there are much more ideas being communicated than simply the words expressed.  The body language, the eye contact, the subtle unconscious reactions (blushing, flinching).  ALL of these lead to a more accurate conveyance of an idea or story.  When only email/text/IM is being utilized, it's reducing the amount of information being transferred.  It makes it less personal, less real.

3.  With computers and gaming and such, we are now entering a world with much less accountability.  People are free to be as rude and dishonest as they like.  This will eventually create habits, and will have very distructive affects for the individuals later in life when they are forced to comply to social norms.

4.  Computers and the search for information.  This one is more subtle than the previous ones.  The ease of obtaining information on the web (the reliability of most is still up for debate) has detracted from many social interactions that have happened in past generations.  No longer must you learn how to clearly convey your thoughts to another individual, and hope you have done so in a polite manner, as such that they can accurately and willingly help you find resources.  Now you can simply put one or two key words in a search field and browse through all the hits until someone somewhere has thought along similar lines and you find what you think you need.

Any time you remove a human interaction from a process, especially during the formative years for humans, you hinder their social developement.

I believe this to be what you mean by the "negative" side of that topic.