BeUnequaled Magazine
So here we are, on the cusp of a technological revolution. With mobile phones getting smaller, turning into mini computers and sites like Facebook and Twitter slowly replacing old (relatively new) technology – email and sms. Not being conceited but I’ve always considered myself a popular person, well I guess not necessarily popular but not Billy no mates. I generally see myself as a conversationalist however looking at my Facebook friend’s list has got me thinking about the state of conversation.
I have over 400 friends (maybe less after this blog) according to my social friend finder – Facebook. This got me excited, “yaaaaaaay look how many friends I have, new friends, old school friends and random friends met on random nights out”. This made/makes me feel like I am in touch with the world. I am able to speak/write to my family in Trinidad without ever leaving dull and cold England :D (I’m not sure if I’m benefitting – I guess it’s the cheaper option). However aside from the time aspect this is the same as sending a letter. On the other hand the more I thought about it the more I flew the flag for Facebook – it allows me to send messages at a faster pace and I get to see pictures, I feel more involved in that person’s life – hence I feel closer………… hmmmmmmm this is where I think technology starts to work against us.
With easier means of communication, minute by minute updates of when people have used the toilet to the constant barrage of new uploaded pictures I feel that technology is killing the art of conversation. What I mean by this is that since it’s easier to send someone a message and simply comment on a status or picture, the information being transferred/communicated is slowly degrading.
Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s the way I converse with my digital counterparts, but I’ve always preferred to speak to someone in person rather than over the phone, or I’d rather speak to them on the phone instead of sending them an email/message.
I am in contact with more people than ever in my life – old school and uni friends for example, which is great… However I recently deleted my Facebook sent messages and I was disappointed in the way I converse and more shockingly that this pattern was slowly creeping into my other conversations. I was contacting people with the same simple questions such as “what’s up?” and “how u doing, what’s new?” This is fine but how valuable is this conversation???? Do these open ended generic questions really bring me closer to my digital counterpart?? I could have a good ‘how you doing, what you been up 2’ chat with an old school friend whilst looking at pics to see what they have done with their life and I feel like this fills the void for meeting that individual. I don’t get the urge to catch up with someone since I know what they are doing and what/where they have been.
I feel my inner friend’s circle is ever present and growing since I personally need that human interaction. In spite of this, my outer friend’s circle is ever decreasing and becoming lost in the Facebook world of pretend hellos. I don’t mean pretend hellos in the sense of fake greetings; I just mean that it is so easy to connect/contact people online that it seems that people don’t necessarily think about the quality of information being transferred.
I think it’s good to leave it here so please leave any comments if you would like to discuss this further.
