Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Macca371
I think the computer has done much more harm than good to me. I have lost all my social skills and I now get crippling social anxiety when I'm talking in a large group of my peers. I also get recurring depression.
I spend most of my day on a computer, have done since I was 11. My mum and dad always told me to get out but I didn't understand why. Now I do.
I think that the age period between 11 and 18 is about learning to interact with your peers so that you grow into an adult sucessfully. I think that the computer has definately done more harm than good. It is an addiction and even though nowadays I limit myself to 2 hours per day, it has done some permanent damage with my social skills, or at least, it will take many years to develop them again.
|
Brave of you to say so, and I think your parents are right. MSN gives you an unnatural level of control over your social interaction with other people. In the real world - which you have to face sooner or later, and frankly the sooner the better - you can't talk TXT, you can't paste smileys onto the end of your sentences, you can't control who is in your conversation and when, and you can't conduct half a dozen separate but parallel chats and have two or three web browsers open, while listening to a CD, all the while giving each person you're talking to the illusion that they have your full attention. Verbal conversation skills require face-to-face interaction.