Technology is Ruining Us!

Click. Click. Click. Tap. Tap. Tap. Silence. Waiting. Anxiety building. Minutes feel like hours, and occasionally they turn into hours. Beep Beep. Sigh of relief. Click. Click. Click. Tap. Tap. Tap. Repeat.

You know what that is? Some of you are laughing, some are still not sure
that right there, is the sound of our society losing it’s perception of reality and what it really means to talk to someone. Yes I’m talking about technology, the terrorist of human interaction. Could someone please tell me when it became socially acceptable to hide behind a piece of equipment of different shapes, sizes and forms in order to tell people how they “really feel” instead of picking up the phone, or a pen, or God forbid a face to face conversation?

I too am guilty of this. I let myself get so wrapped up in other things that I find it hard to leave time to talk anymore. So send an email here, shoot a text off there but I’m starting to forget what it’s like to feel like a human again. It doesn’t make things that much better. Faster and more efficient maybe, but better, no. All it does is leave WAY too much room for interpretation of what the ‘typer’ really means. Oh yes, we’ve all been there. Staring at our phones waiting for someone to write back, then pretending like we don’t need to look at it but when it finally rings, beeps or vibrates we move faster than a tornado in a trailer park.

And after the lonnnggg, drawn out, anticipated wait for the response we read it out of context, and then our feelings are hurt, or we get upset. Then, instead of just checking to see what they really meant, we fight back by writing the work ‘K’. Ooooo the ‘K’ is like an “I-don’t-care-what-you-just-said” slap in the face type reply. The person on the other end can’t accept the ‘K’ because they didn’t mean anything bad by the first text, but instead, oh yes instead of telling them what they really meant they fight back with a “fine”. And the battle has begun.

Then there are the flirty/relationship/potential relationship etc. texts
oh how I take a deep breath before this one, and let out a good long sigh
. Tell me what, before there was cell phones, emailing, face-cult etc, what did we do to talk to each other? Did we call 15 times a day to “just say hi”, or send wink, or a nudge or whatever other ridiculous sign there is out there. With messages that don’t even have enough words to constitute as a sentence? Here’s your answer
we didn’t!!! We waited all day with butterflies and goose bumps, to go home and call them, or go see them. Now by the end of the day, we’re so talked out we don’t have anything to say to each other anymore and we wonder why relationships get boring so fast?!?! And if I see or hear one more couple get in fights because one didn’t text the other back, or some girl/guy wrote on the other persons Facebook wall, I am going to stick my fingers in the fan on the back of my computer! Honestly people romance is now defined by who sends the sweetest message the fastest? instead of who calls you, and talks to you until you can’t wait any longer, and want to see each other. It’s sickening.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is a time and a place for texting, emailing, Face-culting etc. but for starters, it’s not while you’re driving! Please! Pull over if you’re going to upload photos of your hand on the steering wheel because you think it’s sooooo clever you just couldn’t wait till you’re at your destination to send. Really now! But for keeping in touch, and little messages that really show something and have meaning or value then type away. If not, then please pick up a book, go outside, have some human interaction for goodness sake! Or eventually we’re all going to end up alone, sitting in our homes typing to people and thinking that life is great because we have SO many people to talk to at once, when we could be sitting and laughing with friends in real life, or snuggling up to the one we love because we’re not annoyed from hearing from them 3000’s times that day.

So please, take heed in my message. Life is far too short to be sitting around waiting for messages, then spending the rest of the day crying over them because a word was spelled wrong and turned the message around. Although I may be guilty too, I will take my own advice as I put down my phone and stop looking at it like it’s going to transform into a unicorn, and go outside and see the world. Take the chances you want by going after them, not by hiding behind something and letting it do it for you.

—Renee Wishart

This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2009.