I was reading a blog the other day. The topic was social networking. You know facebook, twitter, etc, etc. They weren't saying those things were bad just that they have started to replace our actual face to face interactions a little. I thought about it a lot and realized that I miss having a phone conversation to re-connect with a long lost friend or colleague from a past job. Of course now we don't answer the phone because we don't know the number or the long lost friend is obviously not programmed into our blackberry or iphone.
The reason for all this......I reconnected with a friend from college the other night and we actually TALKED on the phone. It was wonderful. I heard the inflection in his voice and sensed his emotion when we were talking about our lives now and the things we had been through in the past several years. I was able to hear the laughter not a LOL. I was renewed and happy and excited to share with my husband what our old friend was up to these days.
I have instant messaged and twittered and facebooked and text messaged myself into sore fingers and I will certainly continue to do all these things. But I know they will not replace the SPOKEN word for me and hopefully my kids will still continue to converse with their friends and learn those essential social skills that social networking is starting to take away.
What do you think? Leave me a comment or better yet do your own social networking post.
Comments
HOWEVER, I do miss the simplicity of phone calls and real letters at times. And it is really nice to hear the inflection in a phone conversation - so many misunderstandings with just words... or abbreviations!
Lucy
Cheers! Holly at TheBlogFrog
I hear ya'.
~Brenda