Texting, Emailing, IMs and Tweets

Today has been an interesting day for me. I've realized with a bit of alarming concern what is happening with relationships. We just don't talk any more. We text. We send Twitter messages. We email. We instant message. We leave comments on Facebook and MySpace.

I was chatting with a friend who had a fight with her best friend last night, all on text messaging. It never occurred to them to pick up the phone and talk, or just drive over to one another's house and hash it out when they lived blocks away from each other. And this is not the first time she has fought with someone via text messaging. While she was explaining to me her conversation, and the implications she perceived coming from the other end of the cellphone, I began to realize how absolutely insane it all had become. You can't tell a person's true feelings in a text message. You can't discern their intent. You can't know what they were trying to say or felt. You need to have an actual conversation, in person, with back and forth interaction to truly communicate.

I fear our relationships are suffering greatly because we're mistaking communication via technology for relationships. Can you really discern a person's true intent from any of these mediums? I have to wonder.

Here's an interesting article on this topic: Social websites harm children's brains.

L8R,
Walden Fan