Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Telephones and e-mail have made communication between people less personal.



Technology in present days has made communication between people easy and comfortable. However, a conversation through telephone or e-mail can never be as real as a face to face talk. I agree with the statement that technological ways of contact between people have made communication less personal because the expressions, emotions, and reactions of people can not be seen or expressed.
Certainly, when people talk on the phone they laugh or cry, thus, showing their emotions. Even so, the communication through telephone is not the same as a real talk because the gestures and face expressions of the correspondents are not seen. As we know there is a whole study of body language exactly because it is so important in the contact between people and when people talk on the phone or chat through e-mails they are deprived of the ability to observe one another. That way people do not really bond and truly engage in the conversation and this is why that kind of connection is much more impersonal.
On the other hand, when people use e-mail or telephone to communicate, they show only what they want their opponent to see or hear, which is not that easy during face to face conversation. In other words, this type of communication is controlled and is less real and spontaneous. For instance, I have a friend who lives in America and we correspond through e-mails. Soon she told me that she is not coming back to Bulgaria for at least two more years. I was crushed and also very angry. I knew she did not have a choice so I calmed down and wrote her that will be supportive and I will miss her. However, I she had told this to my face I would have shouted and I would have made a big scene. That is what I mean by saying that communication through phone or e-mail is not so spontaneous: people control their momentary reactions more that they could if they were in front of the person. This can be sometimes an advantage but there is no doubt that is makes the communication through technology less personal.
In conclusion, I think that telephones and e-mails are a really good way to keep in touch with someone. However, that kind of communication cannot be compared to the real face to face talk because many times words are not enough. The through personal bonding during a conversation cannot be achieved through telephones or e-mail and that is why they have made communication between people less special and delicate.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

If you could ask a famous person one question, what would you ask? Why?


All of our lives we watch television, listen to music, go to the movies or concerts and all these times we watch the work of famous people, of people who we know as characters from a movie, as a musicians, or as the ones that report the news for us. If I met a popular person I would ask them how they feel about the fact that people always perceive them as the ones they appear on the media rather than as normal human beings.

I would be interested to know the answer of that question because I wonder how famous people shape as unique personalities. After all, a famous person always plays some role in front of public and he/ she is popular with that role. For instance, as I think of Johnny Dep I think of him as Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean not as Johnny Dep the real person. This makes me wonder if somewhere along the way these famous people have actually become the ones they pretend to be. This logic brings me to the question I would asks a famous person if I meet one: how they preserve their own personality and exactly how much does their appearance on the media influence their own lives.

Certainly, a famous person has his own character with his own opinion, likes, dislikes, joys, and fears. However, I wonder how he manages to lead a separate, personal life when people constantly refer to him as the actor, singer, or maybe the tennis player. I wonder how he ignores all the attention form journalists, reporters, fens, etc. who constantly meddle in his life. I think it must be really hard to know that people judge you not for what your personality is but for what you work or for what you appear to be in public. That is why I would be very interested to know how famous people feel about that aspect of their lives: with their privacy and personalities often taken away.

In other words, if I met a famous person I would ask him how he manages to keep who he is in his hearth and still pretend to be someone else in public. I think this would be a difficult question for him to answer and for me to perceive.