Can We Talk Anymore?

Are we part of that new age that just does not know how to talk anymore? I have been wondering that these past couple days. How much easier is it to IM someone on the computer or text message a person on the phone? Is our art of using easier technology in today's society actually curbing our wanting to talk to people in person or on the telephone? I am starting to think that just might be the case.

In past times before technology, people had to communicate in person or through written letters sent through the mail. Did they know the true value of communicating? It used to be a past time to sit around the table at dinner time talking with your family for hours on end. When was the last time you sat around the dinner table with your family like that? Most of the families that I know are to busy running off to sports, dance, scout meetings, PTA meetings, and other such things to be able to sit around the dinner table anymore. Honestly I think that most families are lucky if they can even have one meal a week with all of their family present at once.

In the past couple of years, I have noticed that my verbal speech is becoming almost non-existent outside of my family. I rarely talk to my friends or family on the phone anymore. I know that I would be lost without the internet. Everything I do is on there. It is my connection to the outside world. I went to a friend's house the other day, and I noticed that it was now harder for me to talk on a one to one basis. This is weird because I have always been a bubbly sort of person. I have been accused in the past of talking too much. Now, I find I just had nothing to say. I was struggling to come up with interesting topics. However, I know that if I had been on my trusty internet that I would have had tons of things to say. Give me my Facebook, Twitter, or my blog, and I will type my thoughts down with rapid speed. Face to face speech though now has me tongue tied.

I cannot help thinking that our easier lifestyle with our technology has somehow stolen something very precious from us all. Do not get me wrong. It is a wonderful thing to have a cell phone when the car breaks down, or to have a computer when you need to look something up. I do not mean to say that all our technology is bad. My simple question is though; do we rely on it too much?

As for myself, I think it is time to find the art of conversation again in the truest forms. I do not think that it will hurt me to spend a little less time on the computer, a little less time text messaging people, or anything else that keeps me from expressing myself the way I really want to be expressed. Writing things like LOL symbols is not the same as actually being with a person and having them hear my real laughter coming from me. Anyway, I am on the way out the door. I am meeting my friends in a couple minutes to relax and talk. Yes, that is right in person, and not just on the computer. You might want to do the same.