How Does Technology Affect Loneliness

Many people around the world suffer from the truly crippling effects of technology on loneliness and mental health. Technology has been one of the fastest growing innovations and most affective forms of communication in the modern world, though it carries many crippling effects. High usage of technology and even addiction to technology and the internet have been shown to cause high levels of depression, anxiety, and an overall decrease in mental health. Technology use has also been linked to higher levels of loneliness when used excessively. While that is the case for many, some people believe that technology brings people together and creates more opportunities for communication and improvement of mental health. While some may believe that

Younger age groups of technology users often find themselves to be less social and feel more alone (Deniz 2). This is a direct result of technology use and shows that real-life interactions are no longer second nature amongst younger users. This observation demonstrates that excessive technology users are both aware of their usage and the effect that it has on their social skills, yet they have difficulty straying away from high technology usage and continue to communicate technologically. In the same breath, it has also been revealed that many people feel shy and socially awkward when it comes to face-to-face interaction because they excessively communicate only through technology (Gok 5). Excessive usage of technology is therefore directly linked to decreased social skills and higher levels of loneliness. This data gives some reason as to why younger age groups face such difficulty in social interactions. Along the same lines, younger people are guiltiest of using technology for communication and other things the most as "the majority of female and male students use smartphones for calling friends (90%), messaging (70%), listening to music (75%), watching video (70%), and especially using SNS (85%)" (Gok 3). This reliability on technology for performing every day interactions and activities is very likely to cause a decrease in social skills and a higher risk of loneliness. These statistics demonstrate that dependence on technology is very high amongst younger populations, thus affecting their social skills the most. While levels of loneliness have increased amongst technology users, there is another side to the heated debate of