We have a continuing social revolution occurring in our society in how we communicate.  Ironically I’m using one of the tools I’m about to comment on!  The internet is certainly a wonderful tool. Internet and Social Media ensures communication is quick, efficient, practical, global and cheap.  But how important are these aspects if we stop communicating directly with each other? With direct communication we can connect directly with someone, read others body language, hear the intonation of a voice, observe what the eyes are telling us and picking up these clues helps us build rapport and understand each other better.

What concerns me is that we are using Facebook, twitter etc as a replacement rather than as a useful conduit for communication.    There is a generation now that barely know what writing a letter means and already have  a new way of processing information.  The children born now might not find out what a pen is or what a land based telephone is they will just simply touch screen their hand-held device!

Perhaps it’s not the medium that is important but making some choices about how we want to interact with others. And some of that is about personality style.  Some people I talk to do not want to spend a lot of time on a computer, although skilled in using one but it just doesn’t interest them to spend time facing a screen when they would rather be meeting with friends.

Maybe this phase of such a focus on faceless online technology will pass, as in the next few years I imagine video conferencing will become cheaper and Skype will improve  its quality and maybe our in-house phones will all have a screen to see the other person.  But even then will technology take over from that face to face connection?  I don’t think so and I hope not.   I do believe that fundamentally as humans we have to connect with each other to love and be loved and yes now we have new ways to connect.  Let’s ensure as individuals that face to face and verbal connection continues to occur in balance with new technology.