What happened to communication?

I once saw a t-shirt showing an intersting situation that caught my eye. Two students in the same class were sitting in desks glaring at each other, with steam coming from their ears, vicious faces, pursed lips, and every other detail that could be infused into stick figures to indicate anger. The catch was that they both had cell phones, their thumbs busy at work while they were literally pushing each others' buttons. They weren't saying a word beyond the little pixels of light that were radiating from the screens of their phones. Ridiculous? Incredibly. Common? Ridiculously.

Today's generation has resorted to any form of communication that prevents them from seeing or hearing each other. It seems odd that we distance ourselves from the people we want to talk to. We hide from each other behind the screens of our computers and the keypads of our telephones. From these hiding places we say more cruel things than we would if we were in person. You hear about bullying in school, but everyone can see that. If a kid were to walk up to another kid, deck him, and run away, not only does the abused child know his attacker, but so does everyone else that witnessed it happen. With today's lawsuit-infatuated society, injuring another is highly unwise. Now, if people can bully others and attack their self-worth and individuality without even being seen, here is a tool that can cause more hurt than a punch to the jaw.

It seems that the whole reason we resort to these forms of distanced and impersonal communication is for the reason that they can be used over great distance. While sending an email to someone on the next continent, you can, at the same time, drop a line to the person in the next bedroom with the same amount of ease. The same holds true with phones, both in calls and in text messages. Distance communication is simply easier, because with it you can do everything you can do with conventional communication, such as giving someone a phone call, or talking to them in person. However, it requires almost no effort and even less confidence.

If someone were to offend you dearly, how likely would you be to confront them personally and express how you feel, let alone actually forgive them? That is not the way of today's society. Instead, we spread insidious lies about them via email, including hate messages to them by any impersonal means possible. We turn everyone against them with the flick of a finger, not even saying a word.

Many people know of and have used a form of instant messaging. I know people that have told me they talk to people via the computer that they would never dare talk to face to face. How are we supposed to develop strong friendships if we are only able to communicate to words on a screen and not the person they represent? Technology saps the emotion, expression, and individuality out of communication if it becomes a medium by which people frequently commmunicate. Yet, we are so infatuated with it that to 'be in touch' is a must, and where communication is impossible brings anguish and boredom to our minds.

Simply by searching the internet for blogs, online journals, confessions, and profiles, one can come to know the intimate personal life of another without ever meeting meeting them. All we have to do is read. There is no social aspect, and that makes it so much easier. I have been acquainted with instances where people say and behave online in ways that they never would if anyone were to be watching them. Computers feed off of our true emotion and offer us no more than a synthetic replacement with a claim of ease and instant fun and happiness that is extremely short lived.

Although technology is fantastic in many ways, allowing us to have the world and nearly all the people in it only a button away, it causes us to take that commodity for granted. "I'm only 200 miles from the next city and I don't have cell phone service! This is (censored)." We have become so dependent on a miraculous invention because it is so easy that we can't stand to be without it. What in the world would our lives be like without email and phones? Well, there just happened to be life before them, and so can life continue on without them, no matter how in love we are with them. With humans always trying to travel 500 kb/s on Easy Street, they end up bypassing Experience Drive, Common Sense Boulevard, and Social Avenue. Of course we prefer communicating with people using only one sense, but is it worth being senseless?