Yes, I admit it; I’m an avid emailer and chatter at large. For a long time, I’ve steered clear of MSN for no particular reason besides my preference of Facebook. I enjoy being offline and online, chatting at times while, at other times, I don’t really feel like a two way conversation. I text on Friday night which is a flurry of “What are you doing tonight?” to various friends to “How are you feeling?” on Saturday mornings. My battery remains dead or my phone is lost in my purse for the rest of the week.
I know I write better than I speak, thus using the email and texting option over phoning the person. I just cannot put my thoughts into voice that quickly. I end up walking away with tons of other things to say but the moment had passed.
However, last night I seen a young girl very upset after a stint of conversations over text and MSN. I suddenly wondered what our future generation will be like in regards to vocal communication. Sure, we encourage those at work and school to speak to our peers directly, but we seem to try our hardest to avoid it even if it isn’t an issue. It’s our generation and we were brought up with speech presentations and communication classes, such as Drama. We had no choice in our younger years to speak to someone when things were good or bad.
With more people on the Internet on a daily basis than watching television, are we destined for a quiet universe that solves their problems in scroll opposed to live debates? When people like Obama and Oprah are using Facebook and Twitter, are we safe to assume that these tools are the next generation of advertising? I think so. These people are the premise of vocal communicators and they still know where everyone is at night and advertising and promotion is free!
At the end of the day though, when conflict arises between friends, spouses, or co-workers, it’s always best to hash it out face to face or even via the old telephone which Alexander Graham Bell designed as the telecommunications tool to speak to the universe. We can always assume the worst when it is written communication because it lacks tone and feeling. One person can read an article in a newspaper and interpret it a completely different way than another. We need the voice to guide us in our journey with relationships.
I tried to explain the facts to this young girl last night, but it hasn’t worked thus far and I worry. She’s not the only one doing this. Sometimes I’m even guilty of this “easy way out”. At the end of the day though, is it easier?
