Communi-can't

Well, the world has spun around one rotation to bring us to another day…and another blog.

So since I decided to start this blog a whopping 2 days ago, I have notice myself saying the phrase, “I should blog about this” way too often. Apparently there are a lot of topics that can be blogged about. Because no one in the right mind would actually talk aloud about half the crap they would write about into cyberspace. So here we are, another day, another topic not worth talking about to another human being…

Funny thing was, I was going to write about procrastination, but I’m going to procrastinate on that and write about a topic that just popped into my head…communication. More specifically - the lack of face to face communication in the modern society. I like to consider myself an amateur sociologist since that was my undergraduate major, and since you can’t do anything with that as a major except consider yourself an amateur sociologist, I believe is enough right to expostulate on social communication and the effects of modern technology on social interaction…Sure, why not. So let’s delve, yes let us. So head down to your local College/University in between classes and you will find a disproportionate number of students surgically attached to cell phones and/or iPod devices. I should preface with the fact that I am not here to ridicule those individuals that communicate non-verbally or enjoy listening to music, that would be hypocritical of me, I am merely making observation and hopefully make it humorous. OK, back to the cell phone babies…now I have had the pleasure of working with computers back to Windows 3.1, and I insisted my first computer have a modem so that I could call my friend (who was and still is much more advanced than me in computer wherewithal). So without any ISP I was on my way to peer-to-peer modem dial-up connectivity. Granted back then (early ’92-ish to be specific) computer-to-computer communication was limited, very limited, and I never really got into BBSs because they were like fraternities, you had to know the admin, have something to offer in return, just be granted access to their bulletin boards. Then came the World Wide Web and newsgroups, easily interfaced by using this program called an internet browser: Netscape. Then college = “high speed” internet connection, Pine e-mail, and, wait for it...wait for it, Windows 95! (what a revolution). Pine e-mail was a very basic DOS and Unix based application that allowed users to read messages. Well, the program, as far as I can remember, made you log in each time you wanted to read new message…well, I probably checked that e-mail account about 18 times a minute while in my dorm room first year. That deep blue background would laminate the dark room in a wave of blue colored tinted bliss…until I realized I never had any new mail. About 6% (arbitrary #) of the population used e-mail in ’95 (I found that 29% of households in ’95 accessed the internet, so I’m sort of close). And today? Well, let just say if our University e-mail system goes down for about 5 minutes we’ve got the entire academic, medical, and administrative community calling us for ETAs and how dare we ruin their lives by causing the servers to crash like we did it on purpose. Which brings me back to my observation which I will begin with an anecdote of one such user…

So this woman calls all panicky about not being able to send out e-mails for this important blah, blah, blah. So I tell her that the e-mail servers are acting slow and message sent out may take some time to reach their destinations. And she’s all like, “But I’m just trying send them down the all and around the corner.” As if your distance from the recipient is in direct relation to the time it takes to receive of the e-mail by said recipient. For the uninitiated, its not exactly. Yes, to some degree, but in this case, no. The point being…the recipient is down the hall and around the corner. Its not like she even had to pick up the phone! Just stand up, take 22 steps and see the person – IN PERSON. Alright, another thing you should know about me…I have some weird phobia about calling people on the phone, not talking to people on the phone, just calling. Not to this degree: Phone Phobia, but more like this: “Cold Call Phobia”, so I prefer to talk to people in person…or better yet, by e-mail. But if e-mail is down or unavailable…I prefer to go to the person/store than call. Don’t ask, I don’t know why. I’m sure my friend just think I don’t like them when I never call but that’s not the case. Place that in today’s ultra-cell phone/electronic society and that makes me antiquated. So that should give you some idea where this observation is coming from…but back to the topic at hand, which I have no idea what it is anymore…thanks for playing along.

Oh, right, non-personal communication. IM, text-messaging, E-mail, chat rooms, myspace…blogs (oh the irony) and other non-verbal communication are creating a whole new level of dangers that our younger generation faces with the added accessibility and connectivity to the larger world. Not to mention the distractions when driving, in classes, or walking alone…so what are we to do to protect society from falling into communication overload, attention deficit, and over exposure? That is a tough question to answer but it is certain that technology and teens (and younger) will always be one step ahead of regulation (see file sharing). Cell phones certain have their benefits: protection when walking alone (I know, I’m contradicting myself, but it can act as a deterrent and distraction from your surrounding), calling for emergencies or if lost, etc…we all know what they can do and how they have revolutionized our lives. Children of today will take it for granted and we will be the old geezers talking about the days before cell phones, phone tag, non-caller ID, rotary phones, and quarter pay phones…and actually remember people phone numbers by heart. And I am sure there are endless uses for cell phones that I am completely unaware of, but what will happen when we get to a point where we are talking to people by cell-phone, or atom-phone, or implant-a-phone, to a person right next to us. Or when we don’t recognized our own children when we run into them that one day we just so happen to be in our house at the same time.

On an unrelated note, I recently got a Bluetooth hands-free headset for my cell phone and it totally kicks ass. Now I can blog, chat, e-mail, drive, look pompous, talk on my cell phone, talk to other people, talk to myself without looking crazy, all with this fashionable earpiece dangling from one ear. I highly recommend them. Until tomorrow…unless I procrastinate some more.