It has come to my attention that our society has an unhealthy and maniacal obsession with communication.
Tonight, in the bathroom of Barnes and Nobles, I was startled to hear the lady in the stall next to mine emphatically and audibly agreeing with her toilet.
“Oh yes. Absolutely! That’s exactly right!”
It finally occurred to me that this woman was sitting in a public restroom stall, talking on her cell-phone. I was shocked, disgusted, and more than a little amused.
And then she said this:
“I’m sorry Susan, I’m going to have to ask you to repeat what you just said. I’m in the bathroom here at Barnes and Nobles and I can’t hear you over the stream of the girl peeing beside me.” (In reference to my stream).
My amusement turned to rage quicker than you could say “automatic hand-dryer.” Since when is it A.) okay to take your phone into a public restroom stall and then B.) complain about the noise of someone’s stream?
When I flushed my toilet, the classiest lady in the world was enraged.
“What did you say Susan? It is so loud in here!”
I smiled the smile of vindication as I dried my hands on the back of my knees and walked out, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman’s shoes so I could possibly find her later...and judge her.
I know that I live in the age of instant and constant communication. My cell phone is tethered to me at all times…actually with my cell phone service, I am tethered to my cell phone at all times. And most of my friends, family members, and fellow Americans are the same way. And no, this isn’t going to be yet another discussion of cell phone etiquette (although I do question the appropriateness of Bathroom Betty’s conversation). It just seems strange to me what has happened to communication in the last decade. 10 years ago I was 17 years old and I got my first cell phone for Christmas. The world is so much smaller now than it was then (only metaphorically…duh).
Thanks to all the weddings, babies, and the recent holidays, I’ve had the opportunity to see, touch, (and sometimes smell) some old friends this year who have been reduced to little red notifications in the upper left-hand corner of my computer screen. Even though I find myself in the middle of the communication revolution (entirely too similar to the famous Industrial Revolution) where people can connect with someone around the world in an instant, it is still hard to really stay in touch. Social networks, texting, tweeting, what have you is a shallow type of communication; quantity over quality. Just seeing a picture of an old friend hiking the Appalachian Trail on Facebook doesn’t mean I am communicating with them.
I’m not saying that these forms of communication aren’t helpful (and sometimes harmful); it would be insane to deny their convenience and the monumental effect they’ve had on society. And they don’t always have to be shallow. Loved ones who are away from home are just one Skype call away. And, I’ve communicated better with friends who were continents away using modern means of contact than I have with friends who are mere miles from me. (And actually that kind of communication that lacks any type of exposing physical presence can harbor an elevated emotional connection between people). But the synthetic nature of some social network relationships can create a false and heightened sense of friendship without any real intimacy or understanding of a person’s nuances, whatsoever. You can communicate with people all day without really communicating much of anything. You can know where these people work, who they are friends with, what they are doing, see pictures of them in some of their most intimate settings (holding their hour old baby, dancing with their brand new spouse, engaging in a passionate kiss) without really knowing who they are.
I worry that this glut of communication can become very dangerous for many reasons. As a bookish loner type that can enjoy hours of alone time reading and writing, I miss the days when I could check out of the world for a few hours. If I could go without a cell phone that would be one thing, but telling people that you don’t have a cell phone today is like telling them that you are going to hike the Himalayas without any gear. You are reckless and suicidal…or too eccentric to count as a person. “What do you mean you don’t have a cell phone? What if there’s an emergency? What if someone needs to find you?” I guess they’d have to do it like they did in the Dark Ages where they'd call my house and leave me a message…you remember the 90s don’t you?
And some of you might be thinking, “Well, hey…no big deal. If you want to get away from the world for a few hours, just leave your cell phone at home, or don’t answer it.” Obviously, you haven’t met my mother…which brings me to another negative effect that cell phones have had on the world. It has allowed the over-the-top-worry-wart mind to roam endlessly and tragically because of unanswered text message. If my mother texts or calls me and I don’t respond within a few hours, I know that she has automatically assumed the worst. And I do mean the worst. I’ve died in a horrible car accident, I’ve been kidnapped and sold in the human trafficking market, I've slipped in the shower and knocked myself unconscious and I’ve drowned to death in two inches of water, etc, etc. By the time I call her back, she’s already checked the morgue to see if someone that matches my description has been brought in. Because communication has become so instantaneous, if you don’t respond with the same sense of urgency, this allows people the opportunity to panic or get angry...and really, it’s not that surprising when you think about how physically close our cell phones are to most of us at all times. Why wouldn't she panic?
Along the same lines, cell phones make the brush-off exponentially more painful. Most people can be reached electronically at least three different ways. I personally have a Facebook account, a blog, two e-mail accounts (one personal, one business), and a cell phone and a work number. That is six quick and easy ways that I can be contacted at any point of the day and that might be low compared to other people who also use Twitter and MySpace. When someone can communicate easily with you through multiple means, the brush-off becomes more apparent than before. How much effort does a text message take? When your psychopathic female mind tells you that you’re not worth that effort, you really start to hate the structures of modern communication. When people were dependent on things like telegrams and the postal service for communication, there was always room for human error. Do you know how unreliable smoke signals and carrier pigeons were? But now, communication has lost the element of human fallacy; it’s become harder and harder not to convince yourself that he/she is just not that into you.
And what happened to the days when people would pour over a heartfelt letter complete with energy, time, care, thought, and intent? I do believe people communicate every day with modern technology in a heartfelt way (I have e-mails that I never want to lose because of their power and sentiment), but I doubt the following conversation took place between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams during their years of correspondence in the 1800s:
TJ: Sup?
JA: NM- U?
TJ: Same. Bored. Reading.
JA: Cool. Same.
TJ: TTYL
JA: K
(Again, the ease of communication seems to have contributed to the cheapening of it).
I think what worries me the most is that in the face of all this communication, it seems like we are becoming more and more isolated from one another. We’ve got the whole virtual “world” in our hands on an iPhone which seems to shut us off from the solid world around us. We find ourselves in the physical company of friends, preferring the technological company of others. We are so wrapped up in the communication world that we’ve stopped communicating. It’s kind of like that commercial that came out earlier this year:
John Donne said, “No man is an island.” But I wonder what John Donne would have said if his wife had been able to buy him an Android for Christmas.
Tonight, in the bathroom of Barnes and Nobles, I was startled to hear the lady in the stall next to mine emphatically and audibly agreeing with her toilet.
“Oh yes. Absolutely! That’s exactly right!”
It finally occurred to me that this woman was sitting in a public restroom stall, talking on her cell-phone. I was shocked, disgusted, and more than a little amused.
And then she said this:
“I’m sorry Susan, I’m going to have to ask you to repeat what you just said. I’m in the bathroom here at Barnes and Nobles and I can’t hear you over the stream of the girl peeing beside me.” (In reference to my stream).
My amusement turned to rage quicker than you could say “automatic hand-dryer.” Since when is it A.) okay to take your phone into a public restroom stall and then B.) complain about the noise of someone’s stream?
When I flushed my toilet, the classiest lady in the world was enraged.
“What did you say Susan? It is so loud in here!”
I smiled the smile of vindication as I dried my hands on the back of my knees and walked out, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman’s shoes so I could possibly find her later...and judge her.
I know that I live in the age of instant and constant communication. My cell phone is tethered to me at all times…actually with my cell phone service, I am tethered to my cell phone at all times. And most of my friends, family members, and fellow Americans are the same way. And no, this isn’t going to be yet another discussion of cell phone etiquette (although I do question the appropriateness of Bathroom Betty’s conversation). It just seems strange to me what has happened to communication in the last decade. 10 years ago I was 17 years old and I got my first cell phone for Christmas. The world is so much smaller now than it was then (only metaphorically…duh).
Thanks to all the weddings, babies, and the recent holidays, I’ve had the opportunity to see, touch, (and sometimes smell) some old friends this year who have been reduced to little red notifications in the upper left-hand corner of my computer screen. Even though I find myself in the middle of the communication revolution (entirely too similar to the famous Industrial Revolution) where people can connect with someone around the world in an instant, it is still hard to really stay in touch. Social networks, texting, tweeting, what have you is a shallow type of communication; quantity over quality. Just seeing a picture of an old friend hiking the Appalachian Trail on Facebook doesn’t mean I am communicating with them.
I’m not saying that these forms of communication aren’t helpful (and sometimes harmful); it would be insane to deny their convenience and the monumental effect they’ve had on society. And they don’t always have to be shallow. Loved ones who are away from home are just one Skype call away. And, I’ve communicated better with friends who were continents away using modern means of contact than I have with friends who are mere miles from me. (And actually that kind of communication that lacks any type of exposing physical presence can harbor an elevated emotional connection between people). But the synthetic nature of some social network relationships can create a false and heightened sense of friendship without any real intimacy or understanding of a person’s nuances, whatsoever. You can communicate with people all day without really communicating much of anything. You can know where these people work, who they are friends with, what they are doing, see pictures of them in some of their most intimate settings (holding their hour old baby, dancing with their brand new spouse, engaging in a passionate kiss) without really knowing who they are.
I worry that this glut of communication can become very dangerous for many reasons. As a bookish loner type that can enjoy hours of alone time reading and writing, I miss the days when I could check out of the world for a few hours. If I could go without a cell phone that would be one thing, but telling people that you don’t have a cell phone today is like telling them that you are going to hike the Himalayas without any gear. You are reckless and suicidal…or too eccentric to count as a person. “What do you mean you don’t have a cell phone? What if there’s an emergency? What if someone needs to find you?” I guess they’d have to do it like they did in the Dark Ages where they'd call my house and leave me a message…you remember the 90s don’t you?
And some of you might be thinking, “Well, hey…no big deal. If you want to get away from the world for a few hours, just leave your cell phone at home, or don’t answer it.” Obviously, you haven’t met my mother…which brings me to another negative effect that cell phones have had on the world. It has allowed the over-the-top-worry-wart mind to roam endlessly and tragically because of unanswered text message. If my mother texts or calls me and I don’t respond within a few hours, I know that she has automatically assumed the worst. And I do mean the worst. I’ve died in a horrible car accident, I’ve been kidnapped and sold in the human trafficking market, I've slipped in the shower and knocked myself unconscious and I’ve drowned to death in two inches of water, etc, etc. By the time I call her back, she’s already checked the morgue to see if someone that matches my description has been brought in. Because communication has become so instantaneous, if you don’t respond with the same sense of urgency, this allows people the opportunity to panic or get angry...and really, it’s not that surprising when you think about how physically close our cell phones are to most of us at all times. Why wouldn't she panic?
Along the same lines, cell phones make the brush-off exponentially more painful. Most people can be reached electronically at least three different ways. I personally have a Facebook account, a blog, two e-mail accounts (one personal, one business), and a cell phone and a work number. That is six quick and easy ways that I can be contacted at any point of the day and that might be low compared to other people who also use Twitter and MySpace. When someone can communicate easily with you through multiple means, the brush-off becomes more apparent than before. How much effort does a text message take? When your psychopathic female mind tells you that you’re not worth that effort, you really start to hate the structures of modern communication. When people were dependent on things like telegrams and the postal service for communication, there was always room for human error. Do you know how unreliable smoke signals and carrier pigeons were? But now, communication has lost the element of human fallacy; it’s become harder and harder not to convince yourself that he/she is just not that into you.
And what happened to the days when people would pour over a heartfelt letter complete with energy, time, care, thought, and intent? I do believe people communicate every day with modern technology in a heartfelt way (I have e-mails that I never want to lose because of their power and sentiment), but I doubt the following conversation took place between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams during their years of correspondence in the 1800s:
TJ: Sup?
JA: NM- U?
TJ: Same. Bored. Reading.
JA: Cool. Same.
TJ: TTYL
JA: K
(Again, the ease of communication seems to have contributed to the cheapening of it).
I think what worries me the most is that in the face of all this communication, it seems like we are becoming more and more isolated from one another. We’ve got the whole virtual “world” in our hands on an iPhone which seems to shut us off from the solid world around us. We find ourselves in the physical company of friends, preferring the technological company of others. We are so wrapped up in the communication world that we’ve stopped communicating. It’s kind of like that commercial that came out earlier this year:
John Donne said, “No man is an island.” But I wonder what John Donne would have said if his wife had been able to buy him an Android for Christmas.
Absolutely fabulous piece here. I recently started a home business that gives commissions when people pay their cell phone bills, no brainer for me, I KNEW CELL PHONES WERE AROUND TO STAY !!! Now when I go out to eat I get entertained by noticing little ole ladies with their canes propped up against their leg at the table while they have their cell phone out texting, people from 8-90 have cell phones which is good for me, my business is doing really great and the best part about it is I get residual income every month someone pays their cell phone bill, what an amazing concept. You are truly gifted with words and I agree with your sentiment completely. Even signing up someone in my home business is completely through technology and I don't even have to see them or even talk to them yet I prefer to walk them through the process so they can become familiar with the logistics, small part of a personal touch but better than none at all. With cell phones and computers nowadays the world is more in touch and more out of touch as you say.
ReplyDeletePlease submit this to the newspaper. or a magazine for a commentary. Pref. Vogue or one of those that has talented articles in them.
ReplyDeleteand also, TJ and JA rock. ;)