Constant Contact with Everyone, But We're Still Alone

You know, all this technology, Facebook, and other things are great. We're in constant contact with anyone and everyone. I can talk with a man in Australia, China, and England, all at the same time, as long as I have a computer as the mediator. I can converse about politics and religion all day, without ever having to look anyone in the face. And yet, with as neat as this is, we talk to so many people while we sit in complete solitude infront of our computers.

The email, the facebooking, the texting, and everything else has us talking to people all the time, where we have instant access to anyone and everyone. And yet, we never see the person's face, body language. We never hear the laughter or sarcasm in people's voices. When a time comes that we get to see the virtual personalities IRL, we're so used to the words on a glowing screen that seeing a person's face seems strange. I can't tell you the number of times I've had a long conversation with someone over the internet or wavelengths, only to be followed by meeting with the person, in person, and having nothing to say, nothing to do but look at our shoes.

All of this connectedness is great, to a point, but when people start thinking that online conversations are real socializing, we start to lose sight of what socializing actually is. Seeing someone, talking to someone, hearing their tone of voice, seeing their expressions, reading their body language. All of this is lost through the technological middle man. Emoti-cons don't do body language justice. You just can't capture the subtleties and nuances of a face to face conversation with LOL :D.

So, I'm going to get right to the point, put on my old man hat and squawk,
'Everything's going to Hell in a handbasket!'

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