Talk To Me
A couple nights ago, my family and I went out to dinner. I was excited because it has become a rare opportunity. As we were seated at our table, one-by-one, my family pulled out their smartphones and silence swept across our table.
Nothing bothers me more than finally getting to spend time out with my family only to be ignored. What’s even worse is to try and engage them in conversation only to get a half-hearted “uh hu” or “OK,” or even worse, not to get any response at all. When did we become a society who has lost the ability to communicate properly?
Our smartphones and hand-held devices have become an important part of society, and I am the first to admit that if I forget my phone at home I go into panic mode. What if the kids need to get a hold of me? What If there is an emergency and we need to call 911? I must remind myself that I survived long before any electronic device existed, and I can live without it for a few hours.
What I think worries me the most about the use of electronic devices is how through their use, the art of interpersonal communication is dying. If I want to communicate with my kids, much of the time it done with text messages or social media. I hate texting. No, not because I am older and find it frustrating. It is because it is incredibly difficult to express one’s emotions through words.
Yes, I know there are emojis to assist with this, or the use of punctuation to accentuate our emotions, but they are all just words on a screen that are, more often than not, misinterpreted. I have watched as my daughters have had major drama with their friends over conversations through text messages and social media.
There are positives that come with smartphones and electronic devices. They have allowed us to study better, work harder, and have even allowed for telecommuting. They have allowed those to express themselves in ways they never would be able to in person, but I think the negatives outweigh the positives.
A lack of connection with others is becoming a huge problem. How can we truly connect with others to form a solid relationship if we never take the opportunity to spend time with them? Although our electronic devices are enabling us to speak out when we may not have before, we are missing out on the nonverbal cues that are a large part of our interpersonal communication. In fact, 93 % of communication is nonverbal with only 7% of our communication being the words we speak.
So, if we take into consideration that most of our communication is done by the tone of our voice, facial expressions, and body language, how are we able to develop proper communication when much of this is absent from sight when we are on our electronic devices?
I am a little obsessed with interpersonal communication. I love to see someone smile. I like to know when someone is feeling down without having to ask, and I am big on physical affection. There is nothing I love more than a big, giant, long hug to let someone know how I feel.
I like being able to show others how I am feeling. Whether it is with what my husband calls my happy dance when I get excited, or the tears streaming down my face when my heart is broken. Emotions and expression of our emotions are so important to who we are, and the absence of these from our communications with others is and will continue to affect us in a negative way.
Repeatedly, my kids have told me that times are changing and it’s just the way it is now, but I don’t believe it has to be. Yes, the technological advances are necessary in our global community, but how we relate to one another doesn’t need to change. We need to do more to not only strengthen our own interpersonal skills, but to teach the younger generations to strengthen theirs. We are raising a new generation of little humans who may have interpersonal communication extinct from their relationships if we don’t do something now to fix it.
