Emails, Blogging, Instant messaging, Social networks, all are fast and simple means of keeping in touch with others via computer. Then there are phones which allow folk to send messages to one another, some of the business ones also facilitate emails, instant messaging, blogging, social networking, just like a laptop.
Ride on any sort of public transport and you will view folk sending messages through their phones, reading messages they are receiving, but only very occasionally are they actually talking. It would seem they are much happier to converse via the written word than the spoken word.
This is no shock really, as the Internet Business is increasing and more Online Jobs become available, folk are used to conversing via email to colleagues, clients, suppliers, employees, etc, so the fact that this carries on into their personal habits is just one small progression of their normal practice.
For those who Work From Home, instant messaging may be the way they keep in communication with remote colleagues, so again it is no shock that they also use this format in their personal lives. One thing I find sad, though, is when you view a social networking site and see partners chatting to each other over the social network, such normal things as “I thought you were going out and you are still here”, which suggest that both parties are in the same property, probably the same room, but prefer to talk through their laptop than face to face.
A lot of job adverts you see ask for a good communicator and I imagine that over time this is going to be much more difficult to find, as face to face communication becomes a thing of history. My own children are happy to text their chums, 24 hours a day, but are not comfortable calling them and talking. Could it be that with all this Internet Business, they have discovered new ways of communicating which do not necessitate speech?
I think this would be a real pity and we would miss out on much if we stopped having verbal communications. Such a lot is passed on in the way we talk which cannot be reproduced in writing. How often does it happen that you are talking to family over the telephone, and they will ask if you are well because they can hear in your voice that you are unhappy or in pain? This would not happen via text.
Written words can be misinterpreted in a way which is far less likely to happen in verbal communications. A totally innocent message from one person could well be taken apart by the recipient and, depending upon their own frame of mind at the time, be seen as offensive. Had they spoken with each other via a telephone, this upset would never have happened, the meaning of the message would be clearly delivered and received.
Obviously with the growth in Online Jobs and as more folk Work From Home, there is a requirement for written correspondence, but let us try to keep alive the art of verbal conversation. It is a real art and it would be such a shame to lose it.