I Can't Help But Wonder if We're on the Verge of Losing Our Ability to Really Talk to Each Other

Something I've been noticing lately is that people are using texting as a means to "talk" with one another more and more. I understand there may be times when it may be better to text someone rather than call them, but to use it as a primary means of communicating seems silly...and sad.

Whatever happened to sitting down with someone and talking -- really talking? Whatever happened to looking in their eyes as you talk and seeing the emotion or hearing the emotion in their voice?

I know there are plenty of adults who are texting more every day, and I admit that I've started doing it more and more. It does seem, though, that it is our youth who use it on a consistently regular basis, and I'm afraid there is no way they will ever understand what they are missing out on by not talking to someone face-to-face.

Disagreements cannot be properly handled by typing back and forth on a phone. How can you possibly come to really know and understand someone without that human contact? I've heard of kids breaking up with each other in a text. I can't tell you how humiliating and hurtful it was when I got dumped in an email a few years ago. A text message certainly can't make one feel any more worthy.

I know there are many things my parents experienced that I never will, simply because of the times in which they grew up. Their times were much, much simpler, much slower paced. Those were times of playing board games with the family, playing baseball in the front yard with the neighbor kids in the summer, and making home-baked goods on Saturday morning. No cell phones, no computers, no email, no video games, no texting. Birthday cards and letters were handwritten, and words like "you", "see," and "are" were spelled out correctly--not "spelled" with one letter.

There's no going back to those times, I know. I do hope, however, that in the midst of all the buttons and touch screens we never forget how to use our mouths to talk with each other. I know that no message on a screen can take the place of hearing the words from someone -- regardless of what the message might be.