Digital Interactions: A Study on ‘Facebook’ as an Interface between Children and Parents

Abstract

Technology is the need of the hour. Progress and development cannot be achieved without moving with the times and adopting the latest technologies. New technologies have enabled the individuals to interact on different platforms at the same time. The new forms of interactions, socialization and expression are the order of the day, the new media technologies or the digital media have democratized and globalized the information and have lead to a digitized shifts in all spheres of our lives. The whole new digitized environment has been created for questioning and exploring atmosphere which also have facilitated new ideas, thoughts and creative expressions to be exhibited. The digizens recognize, validate, share, create and extend their ideas, views, and perceptions caring little about their defined values, cultures and behaviors. The socially agreed upon behavioral boundaries are changing fast. The social networking sites are creeping and eroding deep into our relationships, our cultures and ourselves. They have given rise to digitized relationships and digital interactions. There is a shift in relationships. We have gone from personal to public. Even the personal relations are finding expressions through digitized public spaces. True, we have moved on from private to public; individualized to universalized; from one to one to one to all. From recipient to provider technology is the root cause for expressions. We have walked ahead from sit back and listen culture to and express, exchange and do culture’. This has given rise to different levels of creative and expressive as well as interactive planes between parents and children as well. It has changed the dimensions of personal relations. The reveal all and hide nothing expressions are resulting in proving the digital interactions as connectors as well as dividers .The willingness to negotiate differences, the ability to integrate diverse viewpoints into a coherent whole as well as the potential to achieve unique qualities that are brought in fore by the technologies new forms of interactions are either thickening or thinning the interfaces between children and parents. There is a certain shift of paradigm. How far the cultural ethos are upheld and respected, what are the changing dimensions in parent and children relations will be explored by this study on Facebook. It is clear that as long as the underlying threads which keep the fabric of culture and respect for relationships alive, the technology will play a positive role and help the societies, cultures and relationships to grow and evolve, till then the digital ingression will not be an unwelcome phenomena.

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