So I just now saw the new "Now Network" Sprint commercial and it really got me thinking. No I'm not switching carriers. I'm a company man. But seriously, where did we as society become so detached and impersonal? It's all texts and emails, facebook and mySpace. And I still don't know what twitter is.
Two decades ago, we were writing hand-written letters whether we were mailing missed loved ones or passing notes in class to that high school crush. Now we just send an email or a mobile text. Instead of talking on the phone to all hours of the night, we sit at our laptops chatting away on an instant messenger.
Now even though technology has brought many people together, it has removed intimacy from our lives. I sometimes wonder if my fear of intimacy is an extension of being so tech dependent. Well not really fear as it is awkwardness. Can it be fixed? Can we as society turn back the clock and become personal again. I really don't have an answer to that. What I do know is that the next time I find myself in love, I am going to write her letters, talk to her on the phone, bring (not have delivered) her flowers. I am going to make it personal, and maybe, just maybe, find some intimacy in the process.
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okay, i'm a historian, so of course i'm a little biased towards doing some things the old fashioned way. i still write letters to people and i carry postcard stamps on me at all times just in case i see a cool one that i want to buy and send off in the mail. i think that people love those personal touches and it's always nice to get a surprise like that in the mail.
ReplyDeleteon the other hand, i'm a facebook junkie. i ran into ben woods at the bar a month ago and even though we hadn't seen one another in many years, we were up to date on one another's lives due to facebook. we were able to pick up conversations about one another's lives without a lot of the awkwardness and misdirection that comes with reconnecting with someone from your distant past. hell, i've only seen him one time briefly after high school and we weren't particularly close during high school, so if anything i think that facebook provided me with more insight into his life than i would have had otherwise. without it, we might have recognized one another and perhaps said hi, but instead i sat at the bar and had a brief conversation with him to catch up in person. of course there was alcohol involved, so maybe that's why we were able to have an easy conversation.
i say that our current tech tools of communication have their place, but as in everything, they need to be put into context. the info that i get about people's lives on facebook (i use status updates on facebook in lieu of twitter) makes it easier for me to engage people on a more intimate, deeper, personal, level when i actually do see those people. but the trick is that there is no substitute to face time. i use facebook to add to the qualitative time i have with people. to use buzz words, it creates a value added element to my personal interactions. :).
but i don't use facebook as a substitute for spending real time with people. it can be a tool for personal interaction or it can be a barrier. just depends on how you use it.