Modern Communication and Social Networks Changing Our Culture

The internet, email, text messages, and other communication tools has enabled us to connect with a much larger group of people, get news faster, stay up to date on our friends' and acquaintances' lives with relative ease. But it has lessened the importance of direct communication and given us an "easy out" if we don't want to talk to someone. I'm as guilty as the next person about using all of these things. I sometimes say all this technology is to blame for me having difficulty sometimes talking to new people in person. I wouldn't know what I would do without email and a cell phone now, so I'm not at all suggesting that these were bad inventions, but the way we use them has changed our culture in a way I don't particularly like. This little editorial isn't aimed at anyone in particular. It's just some of my thoughts that have been building up over time that I want to share.

But how we use this technology is a bit disturbing to me sometimes. Before we had caller ID, when someone called, it was hard to ignore the person, assuming you do answer the home phone. Even if it took several days to call at a time that the person is home, at least it's not like the recipient wasn't ignoring you, and somehow that seems more comforting to me. With so many ways to communicate now, we communicate with more people that we probably actually want to see in real life, and therefore find that we get ignored more frequently.

Before cell phones, we had to plan things out in advance a lot more, not so much because we wanted to but because we needed to. Someone you want to do something with at 7pm might be unreachable during the course of the day. By the same token, if you had planned to meet at a restaurant at 7 and you were running late, you had no way of letting the other person know. I have only lived as an adult in a society without cell phones when I was studying abroad in Europe, and yes indeed, my friends were more punctual. Of course, there are other contributing factors like they were my best friends and there weren't so many other options for other people to hang out with.

Back in the day, if you didn't want to be friends with someone, you would likely just stop returning their calls (upon hearing a message on the home answering machine). But if you wanted to still be someone's friend but just couldn't make it to something they invited you to, you still called back to say so. In today's society, it's hard to tell the difference sometimes between someone that doesn't care to do anything with you and someone that wants to but just is busy at that particular time you suggested something. Personally, I think not responding to an invite, even if they didn't specifically ask for a response, should say essentially, "I don't want to hang out with you" but in practice it can mean that or it can mean "I can't come but thanks for the invite and I'd like to hang out another time. I'm just too busy or lazy to respond." So, I have come to think that the latter is the case most of the time. And that has gotten me into some trouble in the past because there are some people out there that do still think (like me) that not responding is a sign that they don't really want to be your friend. So I miss out on that signal and keep trying when it's not worth the effort.

If you know me at all, you know that I am extremely dependable and honest and that someone else being misleading/undependable to me is one of the few things that get me upset, so this should come as no surprise. I wish there were statistics available to compare the reliability/responsiveness of people with cell phones/email to people with only a home phone (or to compare people today to people 20 years ago). I bet those with only home phones miss less social meetings, show up on time more frequently, and return more calls.