Relationships and Technology

I am writting this blog to inform you the readers what i believe a relationship is and what effect that a growing world of technology may have on our relationships. Fellow readers I define a relationship as: a joint partnership between two or more people that is carried out in mature and respectful way. I believe relationships occur at the friend level, family level, romantic level, and religious level. It is ignorant of me to tell anyone which relationship is kore important. I do believe though that they are all neccesarry for a stable society.
In my Adult Christian Relationships class we watched a documentary styled film that covered the rising power of technology in the world. It showed how people all over the world are connected in their use of technology and how much technology is used. The reason i am writting about this is becasue it underlines a key concern that people have which is technology is a good thing, but is it also a bad oen? This is the question that is being asked and must be answered. Here is my opinion, I believe that technology is an important thing and a neccessary tool to the 21st century society we live in. I also believe that technology has a huge impact on our relationships with others. We have programs like Facebook, Myspace, Match.com, ect.... these are instruments of technology that are avenues people can go down to interact with others and build relationships. On the other hand though the question of how real are these relationships that are formed through technology are real? I believe some are, but a handful are not. As I am not opposed to social networks through technology I do believe that those face to face interactions with peole and the relationships formed that way can not takeen over by relationships formed through technology. I truley think that was what the students of Kansas State were trying to get across and I commend them for it.

Teen Relationships

I am writting this blogg in respose to this podcast: http://www.andrewrobinsonsblog.com/?p=41 Andrew Robinson talks about how parents and adults have to act to engage with teenagers and strenghthen their relationship with teens. He talks about three components needed to forming a relationship with teens. He says the three biggest one are :

1. Connection
2. Time
3. Consistency

The connection he says can be made by remembering what you were like as a teen and that this helps you to connection with the teen because you have something in common. The next point was Time he says it important to spend time with teens and that spending time with them makes them comfortable, but he also says you got to answer the question of how you can spend more time with them and what you can do with that time. the third point was consistency basically he saying its good to have the connection and spend time with the teen, but you have to do it on a consistent basis.

My opinion about this podcast was that it was a home run because as a teenager I feel he has gotten to the root of why sometimes teens and their older counterparts have strains in their relationships. I feel that the three things he highlighted in this podcast are the most important because as a teenager if I know that i can relate to and adult or a parent and feel that they know where I am coming from I feel more open to share things with them. If I know that the connection is there then I would also be more open to spending time with that parent or adult. Finally i agree that consistency is key in the relationship becasue if that adult or parent is there for me all the time I can then count on them and trust them with more personal things and it is very very very important to have people like this in your life.