Critical Thinking Piece - Introduction

For my Critical Thinking piece I chose my final essay, “The Impact of Modern Technology on Communication,” because it is the final formal essay of the class and I feel it best represents my critical thinking skills.

My goal in this essay was to show how modern technology has taken the “person” out of personal communication. People don’t interact face-to-face as much as they used to, and they rarely write hand-written letters or notes anymore. These courtesies used to be commonplace, but not in today’s society. Communication technology is leading us towards less and less human interaction. I also tried to describe the lack of personal interaction between strangers; where it used to be common to say “hi” to someone when you passed them on the street, nowadays so many people are on their cellphones or listening to some other sort of electronic gadget that they have no idea what’s going on around them. My best example of this was from Gene Weingarten’s “Pearls before Breakfast: Joshua Bell on the Subway.” Even though Bell, a world class violinist, was performing for free in L’Enfant Plaza during rush hour, Weingarten notes that most people didn’t even seem to hear him: “Some who were on cellphones spoke louder as they passed [him], to compete with that infernal racket” (486). To call a classical piece of music performed by a world renowned violinist “infernal racket” proves that people just aren’t hearing each other anymore.

I believe this essay was the best of the three that I completed for this class. I hope you enjoy it.