Phones and Text Messages

So, I spent the better part of the last week without the ability to receive text messages from anyone. Turns out the only people that actually call me to TALK on my phone are my parents. It should go without saying that my phone was VERY quiet the last 6 days. So it got me thinking. Has the way we communicate with each other evolved into something that is good or bad?

I realized this week that I really don’t remember what some of my friends sound like anymore because I never TALK to them. We always carry on text conversations. I mean, it’s great to be able to carry on a “conversation” and still be able to do other things and not have to devote your complete attention to the other person. But then again, you’re not devoting your complete attention to that other person. Doesn’t that in and of itself take away a little bit of the “conversation” part of the equation. We’ve gotten so busy in our every day lives that we’ve managed to reduce significant interaction with those that we care about to a few lines of text. I mean, think about it. We got so busy that instead of visiting friends to have face to face conversations with them, we started making phone calls so that we could “save some time”. Then we took out the voice interaction completely with email, shortly followed by instant messaging; both great time savers and multi tasking enhancers. Now we manage to have conversations using only our thumbs on mobile devices. We don't even have to be in one place any more to compose a messaeg to someone else. What’s next? Is technology going to advance in some way that we can send our thoughts telepathically to someone so that we don’t have to be bothered with typing? Don’t get me wrong, I love texting. I love being able to carry on multiple conversations at once or to be able to carry on a conversation without really stopping whatever it is that I’m doing. But, at what cost? Are we losing some bit of connectivity with the other side of the conversation? It’s hard to judge tone in a text message. Even over the phone you can hear inflections in another person’s voice even if you can’t see their facial expressions or read their body language. Does not having that ability cheapen the conversation any? Does it somehow make it less of a real conversation?

I think as a culture our ways of communicating have changed and evolved, but the most important thing to remember is that we still seek out that communication; in whatever form. I have to admit I felt isolated and alone without the ability to receive regular communication from my friends, and that was only for a 6 day period. I think I’m going to make an effort to call my friends more often s o that I don’t have to say that I can’t remember what their voices sound like, but I doubt that I’ll abandon texting all together. I mean, come on it is pretty dang convenient.