In today’s busy times, we often think an email, text or posting on facebook or a personal blog site is the same as keeping in touch with friends. I believe this to be a travesty and injustice that will carry on to future generations, creating a culture of non-communicative, non-emotional people.
Technology has not really done us any favors in this regard. Yes, I agree that I am much more productive with all my gadgets, and certainly the employers of the world are thrilled, as for many there is no longer any notion of “off hours”, there is no escaping the direct line from employers to employees, no saying I didn’t see the email till this morning, no saying the text didn’t come through. Boundaries have to be set clearly and early, and unfortunately in this day of corporate dis-loyalty, there is always someone else who will answer the email or phone. Leaving your value of family and personal time in question to the boss.
Writing letters is a thing of the past, and what a shame. There is nothing as romantic, or heart felt as a letter penned in someone’s own handwriting. A letter they sat and took time to write, and send to you. That is a true show of emotion, it has value and is personal. I’ve come to receive, thank you notes that are printed off a computer, emails instead of sympathy cards, and love letters sent via email. Even sex has taken a sideways pause to the graphic texting, obscene picture mail, pornographic video mail….. How personal could that possibly be?
Keeping up with your most valued friends, should be something we value and enjoy. Even in the busiest of times, the most hectic of environments. I want friends that are touchable, real, in physical form. Friends that I get together with monthly or weekly for sharing our lives, make new memories, discuss futures with. We don’t seem to cherish people like we used to, and think that a quick text, or email, or website we can direct them to suffices as maintaining friendships and placing value on them.
It allows people to ignore their responsibilities by sending an email instead. This seems to be the norm at work, school and personal life. At work everyone is much bolder on email, and under the guise if they cc: someone of a supervisory nature they have covered their ass, my son’s teachers send emails versus talking with me face to face (for good or bad situations), report cards are on line, assignments are on line, announcements, etc. So now we no longer are teaching children to be responsible for bringing things home to show their parents, no more worrying about having to hide your report card? And our personal lives certainly were not made for meeting, falling in love and breaking up on line. I want to meet a person, look in their eyes, listen to them, and get to know them as a human being, not what could be no more than a fictional character someone wrote about on a dating website.
I’m not thrilled with the way we are progressing in this venue, I miss the human element. I actually am one of the biggest offenders of email and texting, and I’m working hard at changing that. It is far to easy for me to speak in an email with no face to face contact, makes hard situations easier, less personal. I can’t count all the times I have misread, misinterpreted, assumed “tone” in emails. Sarcasm is tough to write out on an email.
I certainly can’t stop the future from happening, nor stop the advancements of technology, but must admit that I’m a little bit glad that I’m lucky enough to remember how awesome getting a love letter was, receiving a phone call late at night from a boyfriend, getting together on a regular basis to pick up where we left off with the true friends of my life, having a meeting face to face with a superior and being told “great job” and being able to see in everyone’s eyes the emotions that are only visible in person.
Course the flip side to that is I do like facebook, it allows me daily interaction with family that live out of state, to see pictures of friends and their kids who live out of state and at least in some small way still feel connected to home.
I guess I just want it all……
0 comments:
Post a Comment