This week has been interesting to say the least, I am finding myself somewhat intrigued by this Facebook thing, is it going to go under or is it going to stay? Are those die-hard Facebooker’s going to survive or are they going to melt down into some kind of sniveling mass of humanity?
Some of us are “people kind of people” we enjoy other folks, conversation with strangers, friends, and sometimes, relatives (but not often). Facebook serves one purpose if anything and that is this. It is a shinning example of how remote and disconnected we have become in the age of communication. It is awful hard to be a people-person in today’s world. Call Waiting, Voice Messaging, Text Messaging, that is the cat’s meow as my Grandmother used to say. A post card in the mail, unheard of in the 21st Century.
“We are so busy we cannot come to the phone right now”
“At the tone, leave your message.”
“We are so busy OD’ing on Vitamin E we cannot come to the …..
Well, you get it dont’cha?”
I don’t understand why they avail themselves of all this technology only to ignore it in the end. It has reached a point where people no longer have time for people. So busy out making a life, that they miss out on life completely. I believe Brad Paisley has a song about it all, it is called “Living On Fast Forward.”
To coin a phrase, “Stop the World, I want off.”
As you age, change is inevitable and in my case, hard to adjust to. I guess, unlike the typical Okie, who lives in a fast-paced, experience-driven, multiple-option world, where choice and personal values pale beside the possibility of exposure to the latest, the biggest, the fastest, the most prestigious, and don’t forget ……. “the best” ……. or the most expensive. I am out of touch. Everyone around me is zippin’ down the Information Highway and I am here, stuck on the on-ramp waiting for a break in the traffic.
The other day, our grandson Kyle, the “teenager” (groan) was over here, and I swear, that kid got more telephone calls, text messages, than I have had in say, five years? Yeah, that wouldn’t be so unreasonable to say. He has 1,500 songs on his I-pod thingy, who in the world has time to listen to fifteen-hundred songs? He said he was streaming live something or rather, and has downloaded his upgrade five times ….. give me a break.
Surround yourself with modern day trappings, and you in the end, still have what everyone else has, not much. Never before have there been so much transmission of information and so little true communication. Innovative communications methods and machinery have been developed and embraced in the past decade, yet the human beings for whom those tools have been developed have increasingly lost touch with the art of personal communication.
One of the very reasons that the Internet took off like it did, was the bare fact, that you could do it all “anonymously” and did not have to inter-relate with anyone. Communication with total strangers and NO commitments. Face it, communication has taken on an entirely new meaning these days.
Tailor made for the American Psyche. A new American lifestyle … Cocooning … burrowing into one’s home/car where comfort and entertainment replace contact with people outside the immediate family. That is when they are not on a cell phone or some other gadget with lithium five year batteries.
Every time I return a business call, I get this line, “I am sorry, he is with a customer right now. Can he call you back?” so I give them the number and then I wait on the return call. More often than not, the call isn’t returned and the afternoon is wasted. The thing that gets me, is every time I go out there (to the business itself) someone will jump up from a desk walk across the room and inquire, “Can I help you?”
What’s the point? People don’t seem to have time for you, unless you have a dollar in your hand, that is.
“I gotta go Grandpa, I have this telemarketer on my other line. I will catch you later.”
Don’t bet on it.
OOO
