Communication, not communications...

Wow, does this quote from the blog Jack’s Wining Words hit home on lots of levels - “More and more we are into communications and less and less into communication.” (Studs Terkel)

Every month when I get my Comcast bill for the communications capabilities that I pay for – cable, telephone and Internet access I wonder at how we came to this place where we pay almost as much for communications as for power or food. I suppose a part of it is seeing a communications bill that used to come from just the phone company (TV was “free” at one time and there was no Internet back when) and which now includes the new communications services that we can’t seem to live without.

But I also think about the gist of Studs Terkel’s remark. I see more and more people in all sorts of what used to be social settings with their heads down, staring intently at their smartphones instead of communicating with those around them. I’m certainly guilty of sneaking a peak at my email app in settings in which I shod be paying attention o others around me. My wife gets on my case about that, as well she should. There is likely nothing that can show up in my email that is more important than having a discussion with a live person.

The same (if not more so) is true about people obsessed with social media sites. There is nothing happening on Facebook that is more dynamic or potentially rewarding that a face to face conversation with another person, yet many ignore the world around them and dive totally into the fantasy land that is Facebook and its games. I get emails from people sharing the joy of someone finding a golden egg in some Facebook game. How sad that they should be that excited and want to share that “news.”

Emailing and Facebooking or Tweeting are forms of communications but the people are not really communicating if that’s all they do. Even blogs, like this one, are a form of communications and perhaps the participants would argue that the comments that are exchanged would pass for a form of communicating; however, they lose the entire nuance that face to face communication carries with it.

So try something new today. Put down the phone, turn off the iPad, walk away from the computer and find someone with face to face. OMG U’ll be LOL before U know it – or something like that. And, you know what? It’s free!