I remember when I was a kid, restrictions were put on me as to how much time I was allowed to spend on the phone. Or at least an attempt was made. We had one phone and it was in the kitchen, a rotary phone hanging on the wall with a coil to connect the phone and the handset. I would gab away to my girlfriends about everything and nothing with zero privacy. That was the way it was and it suited me just fine. Then I got a phone jack in my bedroom and my very own rotary phone!! That allowed me to talk freely about whatever I wanted, without everyone in my household hearing my conversation, and that began my love affair with the telephone. When my grandparents would visit from Manitoba they’d ask me why I needed to spend so much time on the phone. “Why don’t you just go to that person’s house? Doesn’t anybody have conversations face to face anymore?” Ah… but they were old fashioned and they couldn’t accept the changes in technology, they couldn’t understand why us kids had to spend so much time on the phone talking about nothing.
Fast forward to present day….. people barely talk on the phone, texting has changed all that. And now my mother wonders out loud who the heck she is competing with when we are having a conversation that is constantly being interrupted by text messages. My 8 and 9 year old text their friends using text plus, and they text me too. I tried to resist allowing them to do so, but all their friends were doing it and I could see that they would feel left out and left behind if I didn’t allow them to participate in this new way of socializing. The telephone was a much more intimate way of communicating compared to this new method, and yet my grandparents were so opposed to it. They accepted it over time of course, as will my mother I’m sure when she realizes that she doesn’t have a choice, this is how people communicate now.
It is true however, that the intimacy is lost in the transaction of communicating via text message. Nobody talks to each other anymore. Are we creating a new generation of people who won’t be able to make eye contact? Will they be too distracted to carry on a simple conversation without looking down and moving their fingers over a keyboard? How will this affect the next generation who carry the torch further into the technological revolution?
I remember as a child I once saw a show about aliens, they were all hairless creatures with antennas on their temples, they communicated by thought only, nobody spoke. Are we that far off? The technology already exists and has been tested where a person has tiny sensory recognizers attached to the head and then to a computer. The subject can just think about a shape, a colour, or a sentence and the computer reads the brain waves and recognizes what that person is thinking. Sound creepy? Maybe to us, but the next generation may not think so, they may think it’s a great way to communicate, it’s all about instant gratification and convenience after all right?
Of course if you believe in evolution, you can see how humans have changed physically over time. Will the limited use of our voices make speaking unnecessary and decrease our ability to speak over time? Will the increasing amount of typing on tiny keyboards change the way our hands and fingers look and work? And what about our brain activity, what are all these wireless data waves floating through the air doing to our brains? What does all this technology mean to the future of the way we as humans interact?
It’s all a bit scary, but I guess we have to go with the flow, we can’t resist what is happening because it is happening and if we resist the changes in technology and the way humans interact, we will only get left behind. It used to be acceptable to be computer illiterate, now it’s virtually impossible. You know what they say… “if you can’t beat em, join em” As my grandfather used to say “everything in moderation”. I’ll go with that. I still love face time with my friends and family, I love a good chat on the phone, and I’m a texter who is guilty of texting while having a conversation with someone who is right in front of me. (how rude of me, I apologize in advance) I’m trying to accept the changes that are happening while trying not to change too much, and I’m trying to set an example for my children, the next generation. So good luck to me, and to you, it will be interesting to see how far all this technology will go before our time is up.
Texting itself has many benefits but the “texting while talking” phenomenon shows the person you’re having a real conversation with that you value your texting pals more than them.. and is a sign that you may lack genuine interest in your real-life conversations on friends. Just because texting technology is available and has become more common than a conversation in person, I believe it is important to continue to seek ways to encourage face-face human interaction. We are social creatures and the level of engagement required in texting is so minimal that it dilutes the connection and ultimately the relationship between the communicating parties. I don’t believe it’s hilarious or cool to be a texter that interrupts a real-life conversation. This action could potentially be a lack of compassion for other real people. Have you thought about how it makes the person you’re talking to in real-life feel? Would you then ignore the people you are texting now once you hang out with them in person, in an effort to field more text messages? Instead of simply accepting the path we’re on with the “If you can’t beat em, join em” mentality, why shouldn’t we look for ways to encourage face-face social interaction? Does texting have the potential to develop real, intimate relationships? Or is it simply a means to continue in a life filled with many relationships without a real and deep connection.
I wonder if anyone out there remembers the “telex”? Telexing was a form of communication very much like emailing and texting today but was only available business to business but it was used to communicate in writing instantly all over the world. If you were good, and were able to type extremely fast, you could send a message “live” but mostly it worked by creating a tape, much like the old ticker tapes and then send it through very fast. You could stop the tape and add a line or paragraph manually and then start the tape again. These were used a lot pre early 80′s before computers really took off. If you were a telex operator, short form words were used in telexing the same as they are used in texting and emailing today so the terminology is nothing new to me and I was a telex operator at one time, but I like texting better but I do agree that there is a time and place for texting and people should make a better effort to talk face to face. It definitely is more rewarding and that’s just my opinion.
Texting isn’t a problem if you don’t text…….I never have and will continue to promote interaction through spoken conversation…..texting has become so outrageous in terms of the actual text content…….you can say that I am against progress and old fashioned in my approach but to say that text is another barrier to human interaction on a personal level……is simply silly….we all make choices and if your choice is to text so be it but to believe every new technological advance should be embraced is nonsense……put down the smart phone and have a real conversation……it feels great!