Let's Talk About It

LET’S TALK ABOUT IT

I may be a bit old fashioned but if there is anything I love better than reading and my writing it’s talking. It seems we live in an age of technology that has all but eliminated the art of conversation. We have enough modern equipment to boggle the mind. Cell phones, blackberries, I Phones, lap tops, desk tops; we have texting, emailing, twitter, and my favorite Facebooking; in the midst of all of these we have somehow lost verbal communication.
Sometimes I feel like all my friends, both old and new, are virtual buddies now. I can’t remember the last time I actually spoke to my best friend on the phone, but can tell you exactly what she texted me! Of course being able to post my writings on the web and send copies to my friends via email gives me instant gratification. I love the new technology for that plus a lot of other reasons, but it alarms me as well. What frightens me is the nonverbal communication in all of our everyday lives. Will we one day end up like the aliens on Star Trek who only speak to one another with brain waves? Other than my daughter, who still calls me every day on the phone, the only person I talk to on a daily basis is my husband. Of course he loves to talk too, so that makes it nice for me. I exercise my vocal cords once a week with my Mother during our hour long phone call and my sister every other week or so; one brother I communicate with solely through email with his wife and the other one text me.
I’m all for saving the trees and electronic mail is fine but there is nothing like going out to the mailbox and pulling out a letter or card. I am trying to teach my grandson the value of getting mail, the excitement of opening that envelope and seeing what you got like a prize in the cereal box. Oh, they don’t do that much anymore either, do they? Now I do love getting email too, and can remember my first experience hearing that voice saying “You’ve Got Mail” and so I can concede that getting email is comparable to getting snail mail. It just doesn’t work the same way for conversation. What used to be called polite conversation can no longer be called polite or conversation at all.
The air waves must look like something out of a science fiction movie or maybe as laser-beams at the museum with the wireless protection covering the crown jewels. There is no such thing as noise pollution anymore unless you consider the sound of thousands of people walking down the streets of NYC with their phones in front of them and their fingers tapping out their text. I bet that can get pretty loud. If you can, try to imagine the thousands of words, all those messages, translated into signals, floating through our atmosphere. The thought of that sounds like a scene straight from the Twilight Zone.
When you call a business now, by land line or cell, you most likely hear an automated voice before you ever speak to a real person and sometimes you never speak to that real person at all. It’s a series of push one for so and so, or worse they request you speak your answer and you get the response “I don’t understand what you mean”, and then worse of all it disconnects and you have to start all over again. I wonder If Alexander Graham Bell saw this coming? Not only does some of this new technology make you want to pull your hair out, it confirms once again the age of spoken communication is fast becoming a thing of the past.
My deepest concern with all of this is what we are teaching to our children. If as adults we are not using conversation as a first means of communication then how do we expect our youth to learn. We lead by example and as they have for all time, they are following in our footsteps. Answers have become one syllable yes and no and sometimes just a shake of the head; not to mention eye contact, there is little if any of that. I was taught to always look a person in the eye when you are speaking to them. I certainly don’t appreciate what I conceive to be rude and unpleasant behavior when I am being served within a public setting. As the signs say, “Please don’t use your cell phones while in line” but as well I expect the person serving me to be pleasant. I hate to think that polite behavior is a thing of the past. This last little bit has nothing to do with the subject of technology, but it never hurts to be reminded.
I don’t think it is expecting too much to ask for a few simple things; be polite, talk to me, and maybe just once in a while send me a letter or card via snail mail. I plan to do everything within my power to keep myself from falling into the trap of technology language by doing what I do best; so, let’s talk about it.