Picture this—you are with your university friends just sitting around a table socialising doing the typical things those students do, talking and writing letters.
Picture this—you are with your university friends just sitting around a table socialising doing the typical things those students do, talking and writing letters. Although that is not a typical thing to do.
Talking, what’s that, I hear you say? Your picture was you and your friends sitting around a table, holding your electronic devices was it? Since when does that count as socialising?
Change in conversation for the worse
That’s because technology has taken over our lives. People are now inboxing, tweeting, poking, snap chatting or what’s that the new one now, flipping fish?
A few years ago that wasn’t even a verb. I am pretty sure to tweet was not in the Oxford English Dictionary. The word to tweet was when a bird made a noise, not something done by touching an app on a smart phone.
And since when were phones smart? I had not realised that mobile telecommunication devices had brains, thus having the ability to emulate the 1969 Kubler Ross Method- look it up if you don’t know. And before you pick your phone, go to the library and do some proper research.
Using Google does not count as doing some extra research. If or when you go to University you will find that out when you have to do your first big assignment question and you receive your extensive reading list.
The 21st century has become a world that has forgotten the old art form of the face to face conversation.
Even as I commute to university, which takes two hours on my journey using a bus and a metro (the North East’s tacky version of a Tube) half of my fellow travellers are engaged to their devices, whether it be having their headphones on or having their devices glued to their hands.
No don’t get me wrong, I enjoy listening to music to entertain me on my way to university. But technology is making the human race stupid. It was only recently that I saw someone walk into a bin because they were paying too much attention to their phone.
We must encourage more control
What is more important, your life or who has just uploaded a picture of their morning coffee drinks on Instagram? The latter answer I hope. There is another perfect example, two words used there in that sentence—upload and Instagram. All of these words are being forced into the English Language thanks to technology.
This is the thing. Half the time when we are looking at our news feeds is there anything important to look at on a Monday in the morning?
I mean let’s face it—our news feeds are full of winging minnies as I like to call them. They are one of those people that love to have a good old rant online about something, about how they don’t want to get out of bed for example. Funny how they manage to get up out of bed to rant on about how they can’t get out of bed…
Don’t get me wrong but I like to tweet and Facebook as much as the next person does. But I think for some people it is becoming an addiction and we need to find help for those poor unfortunate soles.
What do you think? Can face to face communication return to a normal place in society? Have your say in the comments section below.
Image: Ed Yourdon / Flickr
