Source evaluation essay Student name: Professor: Class: Date: Since the invention of technology, it continues to change the way people interact. Communication has been made very easy because of the internet and social media websites such as Facebook and twitter. The rapid changes in technology and how easy it is to access social media has made technology change the way we communicate. People nowadays prefer to send a text or to make a video call rather than to meet a person face to face. Because of the technological changes, people do not see the need of having face to face interactions. Technology, especially social media, has affected human interactions in a negative and positive way. I chose to do this topic because I am very familiar to the use of technology for interactions. All my friends and family constantly use social media even when we meet to have fun. It is very common to find people using their phones instead of listening to other people speaking or contributing to discussions. In addition, it also affects me because I use the internet and other technologies very frequently. I decided to carry out research on this topic to find out how much social media is changing human interactions in other parts of the world To carry out my research, I first had to make a decision on what I want to research on. I brainstormed on some of the areas I would like to write about. Once I decided to research on the negative effects of technology on human interactions, I went on to search for information on the library and on Google. I typed in the words: effect of technology on human interactions. The first results were not trustable to me because they were not from sources that I trust. Therefore, I decided to pick on two magazines/newspapers that I trusted: the Guardian and The New York Times. I went to their sites and typed the words: effect of technology on human interactions. Once the search results were shown, I went on to analyze the articles that had been displayed to me. I cancelled out the ones that were letters, those that did not have enough research to support the findings. Because I needed an article to add to my sources, I proceeded to search for articles that talked about technology. Once I had the results of my search, I looked through the articles to find out those that I thought had the information I needed and what I found to be applying to my topic of choice. Therefore, I came up with three sources: one article from the Guardian, one from New York Times and a scientific article from the Journal of Information Technology Impact. The first article, "Antisocial Networking?" explains the effects of technology, especially social media, on interactions between children. The article talks about what different people such as parents, psychologists and teachers have to say about the effect of social media on interactions between children. It explains a research that was done in 2010 to find out how often teenagers between twelve and seventeen years used technology, especially the internet. The results showed that many teenagers used the internet for long hours and did not talk to their friends face to face that much. The article also says that nowadays, analysts have moved from looking at effects of social media such as bullying and are now looking at the effect it has on interaction. Besides, it says that teenagers are nowadays not interested in face to face communication and this could affect their future relationships as adults. Unlike their parents who used to interact with friends face to face, teenagers might not be able to trust people they do not know or have healthy relationships. Hence, the article explains that there still needs to be enough research to be done to prove this point. This article was written by Hillary Stout of the New York Times. The writer is currently the Deputy Science editor at the New York Times but at the time he wrote this article, he was the assistant styles editor for the same magazine. The article was published by the New York Times on April 30, 2010 and was meant to discuss some of the effects that social media has on childhood development. In think the source is credible because the author does is not biased as to whether social media has truly affected the youth. Instead, he has used research and the comments from experts on psychology and social interactions to bring forward the effects. The article was meant mainly for parents, teachers, psychologists, researchers or anyone interested in the effects of technology in human interaction. The second article is “Is the internet really killing family life?” from the Guardian. It talks about the effect that technology has on family life. It explains that the institution of family has been weakening in the recent past because of selfishness of people. It further explains that we should not be quick to blame technology for weakened family systems because social media has made the family closer. This is not what people usually think. The article says that the life we live currently is full of movement because of work, school and other responsibilities. However, because of the internet, we are able to communicate with our friends and family wherever we are. Also, our friends are able to follow what goes on in our lives through social media sites like Facebook and twitter. The article also uses research done to support his argument. Finally, it concludes that technology has helped strengthen families including other types of families such as church families. This article was written by Aleks Krotoski. The author has a PhD in social psychology of relationships in online communities and has been writing about social interactions since 1999. Her article was published by the Guardian Newspaper on December 26th 2010 and the intention was to educate the people on the effect of technology on families. I think that this author may have some bias because her parents live in two different countries and she uses social media to keep in touch. She may be defending social media because of the effect it has on her life. However, I think it is a credible source because she is an expert on social interactions. The third source is “The implications of the Internet for human communication” by Matusitz, Jonathan. It talks about the positive and negative impacts that the internet has on human communication. It starts by explaining the effect of the internet on face to face interaction. It explains that people who are used to the use if the internet for communication has less face-to face interactions because they see no need for the personal interactions when they can just talk t people online. However, it explains that the amount of human interaction that happens on the internet depends on the individual user of the internet. The article goes on to discuss how the internet has changes the definition of the word ‘community’. Community nowadays includes virtual community in which there is an imaginary gathering of people who are interacting. This author of the article is Jonathan Matusitz who is a tenured associate professor of human communication at the Nicholson School of Communication at the University of Central Florida. He has a PhD in communication and has done research in the role of communication in interactions, culture and terrorism. The article was published in the Journal of Information Technology Impact. I think the article is a good source because the author is a specialist in the field of communication and has done extensive research. In addition, the article talks about both positive and negative effects of technology on human interaction and does not just lean on one side. All the three sources come together to help me understand the effects that technology, especially the internet has on communication and human interaction. The first article talks about how technology is affecting the interaction of children, the second one talks about how technology has changed how families interact and how it has changed the meaning of technology. The last article talks about the effects of technology on the interactions people have. I think these sources are offering enough information for me to write about the topic. What I would love to locate is how technology is affecting romantic relationships between people. In future it would be wise to conduct research projects to find get statistics on the effects that technology has on the closeness of the family unit. 1. Krotoski, Aleks. "Is the Internet Really Killing Family Life?" Theguardian. Theguardian, 26 Dec. 2010. Web. 3 Dec. 2016. . The source is about the effect of the internet on family. It also explains how the internet has changed the definition of ‘community’. 2. Matusitz, Jonathan. "The implications of the Internet for human communication." Journal of Information Technology Impact 7.1 (2007): 21-34. The source is about the negative and positive impacts that the internet has of human communication. 3. Stout, Hillary. "Antisocial Networking?" New York Times. New York Times, 30 Apr. 2010. Web. 3 Dec. 2016. . The source is about the effect that the internet has on the way children and adolescents interact
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