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First, RELAX! And take a deep, cleansing breath!

I know, I know, you’ve hundreds, if not thousands, of blogs and articles about technology and social networking. Everyone’s got a different angle, from psychology to religion, from business to health. Hopefully, this will NOT be, in any way or fashion, like one of them. Let me explain.

Growing up (I’m 46 and pre- Internet, cellphones, pagers/beepers, email and DVRs), I remember my parents making long-distance* phone** calls to their parents, shortly before making a trip to see them (usually around Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas). They would discuss the details of their arrival and then brief small-talk. Because of the financial expense of long-distance, calls would be very short (30 minutes).

After the 6-8 hour drive from Midland, TX, to Corsicana, TX, my mother, stepfather, myself, my grandfather and grandmother would sit down around the kitchen table and lively conversation would begin as my parents and I would catch my grandparents up on what we had been doing since our last visit (and any letters which might have been exchanged in the mail***)—places we’d camped, letters my parents had received from former classmates (both my parents met and attended school in Corsicana!) and just general stuff. Each visit included this social time of visiting and getting “caught up” with events, activities and adventures.

After I graduated from high school and began attending college, long-distance was still expensive, so letter-writing (see “Mail” below) was the main source of communication between holiday visits.

Several years after I graduated from college, my mother got a computer and discovered the new Internet and email communication! Soon (after I got a computer or used a library’s), she and I began exchanging emails and communication continued in that quick and efficient format. 

Today (MANY years later), I have found a degression in my real-life conversations with my parents and some of my friends who live out of town. When I visit my parents, we have less to discuss and talk about because, well, we’ve either discussed the current events via email or in a weekly or bi-monthly cellphone conversation. A friend of mine, about to visit me from CA, will be in town this weekend and because we’ve continued our communication through email, text messaging and cellphone calls, we will not have as much to talk about and discuss because we’ve already done so. In other words, the expressions and conversing will not be as sweet and surprising. It almost seems as though that, in spite of our intelligence in creating these new forms of communication and socialization, we’ve stunted our communication as well.

Your thoughts?

*”Long-distance” is a term for making LAN line calls outside of your area code.

**”Phone” (also known as a “telephone”) is a LAN line device used for communication; created in 1844 shortly after Alexander Graham Bell’s discovery that communication could be performed over wires); soon to be extinct with the continued expansion of cellphone services and towers.

***”Mail” is how one used to communicate, using a writing instrument (pen or pencil) and paper, envelopes, postage stamps and using the United States Postal Service to deliver such communication between persons; soon to be extinct due to degrading customer service and the continued expansion of cellphone services, email, blogs, vblogs and social networking.