Every day I communicate with many different people. People with whom I have shared secrets, thought, desires, menial conversations. I gossip, I discuss, I lecture and debate. All without opening my mouth.
With the amazing technology that is internet, I interact with people I would previously have had no contact with. I have moved to a new country. In 'the olden days', communicating would mean saving up all your pennies to make an operator assisted call back home, where for ten mintues (which is all you could afford) you would share all your histories and innermost thoughts with your dearests.
Now, I have made contact with people I thought I have lost forever. I talk regually to my best friends, and have made new best friends on the way. I talk to my family. I am studying a degree. I discuss the course with my school colleagues. All without opening my mouth.
While the benefits of this technology are obvious, I also find it all a bit sad. I miss talking. I miss the personal contact. I spend more time talking to friends on-line than I do in person. Have I created a substitute? (This is what happens when your husband spends all his time on the building site just so we can have a nice house to live in and all I have to talk to are my two little honeys). I am moving into the robot age where technology takes over the functions that people used to fullfill? I also wonder if this is what it is like being deaf and living in a world without sound. That is what my world has largely become as I sit in front of my screen. My world is flickering lights emited from a box. Will my visual ability improve over my sense of hearing based on need and use. Will my mouth lose it´s ability to talk and be more a function to feed with?Will my fingers evolve to enable me to type better? (Will my typing and spelling improve?)
I find that I am also having to learn a new way of communicating. I usually fumble my way through conversations, using body language as a sign whether I have been able to communicate. In this technical world, the only sign whether the person interpreted just as I had intended is whether or not they stop communicating. My mind whirls why. Is it something I said. Is it that they don´t like me any more. No, be rational, maybe things are going on their own life that they just don´t have time and then as time passes they forget. Friendship now is a fleeting thing whereby people will only keep in contact if you can keep them interested. The need to grab them in the first sentence. It´s not like you can bump into people in the street and ask them why they stopped making contact, you don´t know where your new friends are.
And who are the people you are communicating with? The little thumbprint really doesn´t give anything away, that is if there is a photo at all. People have become scared of being true to themselves. They keep themselves guarded only giving away little tidbits. OK maybe you knew them 15 years ago, but who are they now? Can you know someone without actually talking to them? Can you build a proper relationship on-line. Obviously, as people get married after meeting in chat rooms. Maybe someone can let me into the secrets of how to manage with this new distant, obseqious community. How can I become a member and functionally live my life on-line instead of fluffing about at the edges? Do I really want to? As the only person I know without a mobile, I sometimes question how much do we want to evolve and to what cost?
I think on these thoughts, I will go now and find someone to talk to. And hug. And snuggle. Try doing that with your computer.
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2 comments:
:)
hugs
It's a little interesting isn't it? I think the biggest problem with this form of communication is that because it is so public, you just don't know your audience. In all conventional interactions, you modify your behaviour slightly to suit your audience. But you just don't know who might be reading. So you end up using a general mask - the least offensive version of yourself you can muster, for fear of being completely audience inappropriate.
I find myself acutely aware that the Australian sense of humour may be completely misinterpreted by non-Australians. That silly, flippant remarks might be taken too seriously. But I think genuine connections are still made. They may be a little different, but then all social interactions are different. Of course, face to face is good. Those people who get married have to end up in the same room at some stage!
Look at it this way, you potentially have a huge number of people to visit when you travel... :)
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