Society today relies on technology for far too many things that are not necessary. Instead of human contact and face to face interactions and communication that have been used since the beginning of human existence it has become strictly email and networking based communication. There is no human contact that reinsures an individual that they have the support and love that accompanies the Greek term Philia, meaning friend. Without that human contact that should come with friendship it is unsure to which the intent of the context is suppose to be interoperated. Technology becoming increasingly more manipulative in its uses diminishes the conception of Philia, unaware of whether or not it is genuine or falsely recognized. The use of technology in regards to friendship is not all negative there are some positives, but it continuously blurs the lines of what friendship is or is not thus resulting in devastation that is caused similarly by a chimera within Greek Mythology. Philia as understood by the Greeks ceases to exist, it is no longer represented by emotions but rather emoticons, and technology morphs its understandings from physical to platonic. “The idea of friendship in ancient times could not have been more different. Achilles and Patroclus, David and Jonathan, Virgil’s Nisus and Euryalus: Far from being ordinary and universal, friendship, for the ancients, was rare, previous, and hard-won” (Deresiewicz 2009, 2). True friendship encompasses depth and love to which one cannot receive through a computer screen but its accessibility allows for immediate and accessible communication.
Technology, specifically social networking websites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and many others contribute to a certain type of effective comm...
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...has been manipulated countless times leaving little recognition to the truth that the Greeks had established. Thanks to technology the true meaning of friendship has been lost with too many clicks of the ‘accept friend’ request.
Works Cited
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The article “Faux friendship”, written by William Deresiewicz, explains the influence social media has had on the structure of friendship over the years. In the article states, that in this day in age friendships are so common and under looked that we are essentially friends with everyone. Deresiewicz believes that, with the introduction of social media sites such as, face book, my space, and twitter, people seem to value the number of “friends” they have rather than the quality of their few intimate friendships. Deresiewicz explains that, in ancient times friendships were drastically different. He applauds friendships like that of Achilles and Patrodus, David and Jonathan, Virgil Nisus and Euryalus stating that they were unordinary, but universal,
With social media opening avenues to new and exciting relationships the meaning of friend has suddenly become perplexed. Anyone with a meager showering
Late one evening, curled up in her nest, Harriet lay thoughtfully reading the last of Aristotle’s model of friendships: the perfect friendship. Though no secret to Harriet, Aristotle presents the idea that it is the most desirable and genuine of the three forms. The foundation of this friendship is not trivial, but instead the relationship is built on a common good and virtuous nature. As Aristotle explains, “those who love for the sake of utility love for the sake of what is good for themselves, and those who love for the sake of pleasure do so for the sake of what is pleasant to themselves.” Aristotle continues, “Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for those wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.” (concluding sentence or two...)
Friendship is undoubtedly one of the most important elements in the books of Aristotle’s ethical principles. Aristotle takes the idea of friendship to a serious degree. He categorizes them into three groups or types of friendships. This report will attempt to define each type of friendship as well as identify the role of friendship in a society.
Throughout our lives, we value many things. Whether it’s valuing family, a passion, or even priorities, we highly praise certain things. For now, let’s take friendship into consideration. Some individuals value friendship whereas others don’t. Those who value friendship value it because they turn to in order to seek shelter when there’s nowhere else to turn to. It is safe to say friendship is a significant part of our lives, and no individual can vouch for friendship like Greek philosopher, Aristotle. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics delves into this idea of friendship being a necessity as well as conveying the three types of friendship he establishes. Friendship based on utility, pleasure, and virtue were thoroughly examined and ultimately, Aristotle developed a stance on the fact that friendship based on virtue is the one to attain. Subsequently, he provides a strong foundation for which he says friendship based on utility and pleasure are unstable friendships.
Alex Pattakos used Aristotle to explain the value of friendships several times in his article, “The Meaning of Friendship in a Social-Networked World”. Aristotle said that friendship was like “a single soul living in two bodies” (210); a thought that contrasted quite a bit from the movie The Social Network. Pattakos used the popular movie to assess the effect of social media in friendships. He described our lives as now having five-hundred friends, meaning more of a quantity than good quality friendships. Pattakos believes that as a society we have drifted away from friendships and the sense of community. He also believes that we would rather talk to random strangers because as a society we have lost the will to work towards close friendships.
The first level of friendship according to Aristotle is based on utility, where both parties derive some benefit from each other (Pangle, 2002). To him, this kind of utility friendship is shallow as it is “easily dissolved”. Aristotle uses the example of trade and claims that friendships based on utility are often found between opposite people, in order to maximize their trade.
Aristotle believes that everyone is in need of some type of friend, he states that “for rich people and those who rule and have power, there seems to be the greatest need for friends.”(page. 144, book VIII) Aristotle believes that we as humans benefit greatly from having friends, no matter who we are or what position we are in wealthy or poor. There are three distinct types of friendship that Aristotle directs his beliefs towards. These three types of friendships include: Utility, pleasure, and Goodness or virtuous friendship. Aristotle believes that friendship is something that is extremely important to have and should be held above many things. Friendship Utility is unlike the friendships of pleasure or goodness because as Aristotle puts it is “for the old” he explains that friendship Utility is a friendship that two people may have where they only communicate with one another for self-benefit or to gain something for one’s self. These two people are not likely to live with each other and at times may not even be nice to th...
First, the article introduces the audience to friendships described by Aristotle, and Todd May. In the text it states, “It is threatened when we are encouraged to look up on those
The most satisfactory conclusion , that I can come to is that for Aristotle traditional virtual friendship of the is simply and psychologically impossible, as it is not involved real life interaction and communication face to face by two partners.
At first glance, the gadgets and gizmos that today’s society has so readily integrated into our personal lives may be considered a godsend. It’s fast working, requires minimal effort to use, and does a lot of our daily tasks for us. Another one of the main advantages of possessing such technology is that we have the ability to connect with friends all over the globe. While this constant connection may seem beneficial, a large gap lies between simply connecting and actually communicating. Ultimately, the time we spend absorbed in our virtual worlds damages our ability to talk to our friends face to face. We lose social skills as we use social media. In the mysterious murder of friendship, technology is the main suspect.
Communication plays an important role and becomes an essential part in our daily lives. Today we have taken communication to new level as social media and social networking. They have had a tremendous impacts on the word, on our culture and in business as well. Social media websites are some of the most popular on the internet, such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. They are the places where people can interact with others easily and expose themselves to strangers. Our generation and the younger ones have more opportunities to grow up with the new development of technology that will shape the way they live of communicating and sharing ideas. The social media causes some problems that lead to less social interaction and negatively affect students academic, but it also brings benefit to people that creates new social connections to bring people from all over the world to be closer.
“We barely have time to pause and reflect these days on how far communicating through technology has progressed. Without even taking a deep breath, we’ve transitioned from email to chat to blogs to social networks and more recently to twitter” (Alan 2007). Communicating with technology has changed in many different ways. We usually “get in touch” with people through technology rather than speaking with them face to face. The most popular way people discuss things, with another individual, is through our phones. Phones have been around way before I was born in 1996, but throughout the years, they have developed a phone called a “smart phone”. The smart phone has all kinds of new things that we can use to socialize with our peers. On these new phones, we can connect with our friends or family on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Technology has also developed Skype, a place you can talk with people on the computer with instant voice and video for hours. The new communication changes have changed drastically from the new advances made in technology through our smart phones, social networking sites, and Skype.
Phones have changed over the past twenty years and have had a positive and negative effect on people. Man kind as find many ways to communicate and stay connected with each other and the most common way is by a cellphone. Phones Cellphones have become one apart of our daily lives and some people just cannot live without them. In fact people use them more like computes than an actual phone itself. Most people let their phones control their lives and if their not carful it could have some serious consequences. Phones continue to get more and more advanced as time moves forward. However, in the beginning phones had a tough time getting out to the public however, if it was not for the first step into technology we would not have the phones we have today.
People in the present society have turned from the use of the old means of communication to the more advanced and technological ways of communicating. Technology has made it easier for people to communicate in a faster, efficient, and cost saving means through the introduction of the communication channels. The world has turned out to be the centre for technology with different technologies emerging daily as the people continue to develop from time to time to cope with the growing technology. The benefits of adopting the communication technology are explained in this article which shows why people do not function without technology.