Call me old fashioned but I think there are some things that social networks such as Facebook should not be used for. One of them is letting your significant other know by a simple click on the keyboard that the two of you are yesterdays’ news. (Relationship status single.) Not only is that a coward’s way out, it’s just downright mean.
I’ve seen it happen over and over again from the very young to the you should know better age group. (40 and older).
What happened to Dear John or Dear Jane letters? They must have gone by the wayside when emailing and texting replaced letter writing. I think with all our great advancements, technology has dumbed down the human race. We may type faster, fill our heads with more information that we could possibly ever process… making life a lot easier, technologically speaking, BUT we are losing the ability to communicate with another human being.
I’m concerned that in another generation, the art of conversation will be extinct. What will follow?
Read this interesting article about the downside of technology. Readers…I’m curious what you think!
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I was at my sister’s house a couple of weekends ago. Her son and daughter in law were visiting with their two year old. I was there for a couple of hours, at least. While I was there, the daughter in law NEVER stopped looking at her cell phone and texting. My nephew only stopped to take a walk with his Dad. I found it very disconcerting. A woman visited me in March. She was not someone I knew personally, but was here for a sort of business meeting about a song I wrote for her project. Anyway, I picked her up at the airport, and the entire ride home, while I tried to make conversation with her, she looked at her cell phone, reading and replying to text messages. I find it hard to converse with anyone who is unwilling to look at me….I need to see eyes!
I agree! I have had this happen to me many times….I’m just not sure people understand how rude it is. It’s so accepted in today’s society.
I used to work with students who needed to polish up their speaking skills for college interviews. Some of the brightest students had a hard time communicating verbally. To me, that’s very troubling.
I’m torn on this subject. I absolutely agree that the younger generation (and people of any generation) who seem to be attached by an invisible umbilical cord to their cell phones for the sheer purpose of texting…. That’s just a really bad and very addictive habit.
On the other hand, for myself – although I absolutely love talking with people in person while socializing, I hate making and receiving phone calls. I infinitely prefer messaging on facebook, VN and doing e-mails – because when using this medium, I can switch my attention to my husband if he wants to say something to me. I can walk away from my computer to get that load of laundry out of the dryer immediately when the buzzer goes off. I can play with my dog if she smacks her “potty bells” and then indicates that no, she doesn’t need to go outside, she wants to play. NOW.
When I’m on the phone, I can’t do all those things. And then there’s needing to go to the bathroom, of course. I most definitely like being able to walk away from my computer to do THAT as quickly as possible!
So as I said, I’m torn. But then I don’t text – we didn’t bother to pay for texting on our cell plan and that doesn’t bother me at all. I do, however, have a problem with people like my sister (who won’t touch a computer and actually forgets to bother to carry her cell phone) who puts on her makeup and styles her hair while driving. She’s just as dangerous to society as people who text while driving. I’d most definitely like to see all those people get fined for their dangerous. Highly and regularly.
I like talking face to face with people…I like the human contact!
Oh, I absolutely agree, Debi. I’m saying I prefer e-mails and FB private messaging to phone calls. I hate talking on the phone intensely, probably because I’m such a talker. So I get stuck on there forever, and then I’m upset with both myself and the other nonstop talker. (LOL!) So phone calls are limited to my Mom only, except for absolutely necessary calls.
Remember the old phones where we could only go as far as the chord would allow us? It was always aggravating when a cute guy would call and the whole family could hear the conversation!!
Cute guys called you? No cute guys ever called me!!! (I’m serious. I was 85 lbs at 5’6″ in high school and had buck teeth. I finally paid for my own braces when I was a senior in high school, but then my family couldn’t afford to send me to college anywhere….)
Finally 3 years later at age 21 I got up the courage to move out of this “Cornfield-Cowtown” tiny area of Illinois all the way to Denver, Colorado – and that’s when my dating life finally started. Talk about a late bloomer!
At least I had complete privacy for my “corded” phone calls, though! (Hey, did you have to deal with party lines? We had party lines when I was growing up and when we were kids, we just loved to listen in on my older sister’s friends talks with their boyfriends. Boy did they used to get MAD at us! By the time I was in high school, there were no more party lines. Of course, I also didn’t have a boyfriend, hahaha.)
I just checked out your picture Miss Duffy and you are a cutie-pie! I also read your bio and have tremendous respect for you! I wish you only the very BEST!!
Well thanks, Deb. One’s attitude about making the best of what they’re dealing with makes a huge difference. You know about that, and for that reason I have tremendous respect for YOU, too.
P.S. Trust me, once I got contact lenses at age 27 and then started wearing makeup - then slowly learned how to style my hair – all that made a HUGE difference. At my 15th class reunion – the first one I attended – nobody had any clue who I was, and their mouths dropped open when I told them.
I have a similar story….I was a late bloomer and when I went to our 10th high school reunion, someone came up to my husband (we graduated in the same class) and said, “Richard…did you marry an “out of towner? What a pretty girl!”
LOL! My mom use to yell at me because I would be pacing the floor on the old cord phone & have it all twisted up while yakking for hours with my gal pals! It was probably a good thing I didn’t have texting back then! My mother didn’t listen in much, figured it was just teenage nonsense, the TV had her attention. Oh yeah, remember when TV was sooo Evil taking up people’s time? My dad was deaf, he didn’t realize what was going on half the time.
I very rarely had a cute guy call! It was usually the idiot down the street calling me & my sister obscene names. One day she slammed the receiver down so hard she broke it! Boy, were we in trouble! There was only One phone in the house in those days. We got an extension after that, that’s when eavesdropping started. Oh Boy. “Mom, I Know you’re there…” She’d say: “GET OFF that phone Now! It’s been over an hour! Don’t you have homework?” *Groan, “gotta go…see ya”
So now I have a phone that I pace around with, can’t find half the time. I’m on Facebook everyday! I love it! Two of my sisters refuse to be online. Nobody writes letters much, but I do like to mail birthday cards & Christmas cards out. It’s still nice to find something personal in the mailbox. A mailed Thank you note is always nice too.
I dislike people texting when I want face to face conversation. I find it very rude. What is so important that it can’t wait a few minutes? I got on my youngest child for doing that.
I enjoyed what you had to say…Put a smile on my face… Thanks for sharing!!
I moved near my daughter and her family and we decided to split dinner times. I made two rules right away. No tv on during dinner, and no texting at the dinner table. I had to confiscate my 16 year old granddaughter’s phone to get her to understand that I meant business. Now they don’t text during dinner at their house.
Count me as one of the “old fogies” that still believes in Thank You letters along with “Dear John or Jane” letters. Honest to goodness paper correspondence that has to have a stamp to arrive at the intended location.
I was talking to my daughter yesterday. She was driving home (hands-free phone) and she saw a boy riding a Ripstik skate-board while texting on his phone. She was totally shocked that he managed to do both at the same time. I firmly believe that technology has made us a shallow civilization, but this young boy had to have amazing multi-task capabilities. I hope he remembers to watch traffic.
My Mother insisted that all 5 of her children write thank-you notes. I passed this down to my four children and I have a feeling they will do the same!