Эссе: Virtual reality - a part of our life / dangerous

Nowadays, there is growing debate over the impact of Internet on social skills. Some people think that virtual interactions can have a negative influence on people’s social skills in real life, while others disagree with this point of view. In my opinion, e-communication does more harm than good for a number of reasons. Firstly, people are constantly distracted by their devices. Thus, they might be less involved in real life. Secondly, communication via the Internet can often lead to a shorter and simpler vocabulary. Consequently, people may not be able to fully express their feelings and thoughts. Finally, using devices can become an addiction, which may affect people’s social skills in a detrimental way because they devote more time to their screens rather than real-life interaction. Nevertheless, some people have an opposing point of view. According to their opinion, in Internet people develop real-life social skills because they learn how to communicate with others and feel more confident in face-to-face interaction. Despite this argument, I cannot agree with this opinion. A person can distract from a conversation or refuse to answer a question during an Internet interaction. Besides, people do not see emotions of their interlocutors. Hence, in real life they are unable to reap the benefits from e-talks because interaction in person requires attention and a skill of reading emotional cues. Taking into account that virtual communication can be useful, I am inclined to believe that constant e-interaction has a negative impact on real-life social skills.