Wednesday, October 1st, 2008The great age of technology Recent events on Humzoo have caused me to reflect on the age that we live in, and how we are evolving as human beings. We live in a time when there is more technology than ever before. We can text, phone, blog, e-mail, IM, and, well, lots of other stuff. Letters that once would have taken a week to send by mail can now be sent instantly with the touch of a button. With my ultra-cheap long-distance plan, I can phone my mom any time I want, instead of having to wait until Sunday night. I can send my husband's 95-year old grandma pictures of the kids in no time at all. Peter can check the status of his website on his Crackberry. And so on and so forth.
Has this made us better communicators?
When I was in University I only phoned my mom once a week, and I looked forward to it. I saved up all my news and we cherished every minute of those brief conversations. With clashing work and school schedules and expensive long distance, those were the only times we could talk. Now we talk all the time! Which is great, but I don't think I cherish those talks like I did when I was in University. I think I take them for granted.
I used to send letters to my grandma once a month. Now I dash off quick e-mails, attach a few photos, and send them to my uncle. He prints them off and takes them to Grandma. It's faster, but she misses out on the anticipation of waiting for a letter with a few precious photos of the great-grand-kids, one of whom is her namesake.
Yesterday there was a war of words here. Two blogs were spammed. (Can I emphasize that enough? There were two!) In the heated exchange words were typed and things were deleted. I know I said a couple of things that I probably wouldn't have said in real life, even if someone was annoying me more than an itchy wool sweater on a hot day. But it's easy to type, easy to delete. Easy to get caught up in a battle of typed words. Easy to become someone else and forget that a human being is behind each of our computers. (I personally am a 55-year old single guy with b.o. who lives in a basement and hasn't changed my stained undershirt in over a month. Baby come and light my fire!)
So has this great age of technology made us better communicators? One thing is for sure, it hasn't improved my grammar, spelling, or punctuation.
When we do e-mail we do it quickly, effortlessly and leave the obvious grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes.
I didn't catch the blow by blow and I didn't see any spam but I do know that some months ago I marveled at how nice everyone was at Humzoo. I have been disappointed with recent activity, but I think it is growing pains. I am confident that things will improve.
Lastly, I heartily appreciate your last paragraph, it came very close to an apology. They are very hard to do, and I respect that, thank you.
When we do, it's amazing what we learn. The chatty, friendly woman that you see every day is a mother of a grown-son who has been missing for 4 years and she spends nearly every hour of her day on a PC or phone researching and searching for him. The other woman who you talk to in the morning works for the IRS and volunteers at an auction every week--even when it is miserably hot. She's still there. Or the quiet one who works for the CIA (or is it the FBI...I always forget) and got a gun for a birthday present and likes to be silly occasionally.
Before we had all these neat things to keep us from talking, we tended to talk more. The last couple of weeks Humzoo has felt like an odd place with one part being fun and family and funny and another part being strangers who snipe at each other and get angry over words that probably didn't start out being controversial but ended up making enemies and destroying the community feeling. I think Lionheart is right--it is partly growing pains. And I think someone else mentioned the general world--fear, panic, frustration, and anger as well as the love shown on the blog I just read about the $3.61 that makes us less friendly and more sensitive to words and quick comments that might have been avoided with more thought and less emotion.
I hope the world and Humzoo will balance a bit more. Even during the Great Depression people found a way to take care of each other more and trust and care about each other more--even with all the chaos and stress. Humzoo has always felt a bit like a sanctuary from most of it (the occasional blog about politics or religion or taxes making for some heated but respectful conversations excluded) but lately it has felt nearly as bad as my work place with layoffs and anger and frustration and very volatile feelings being vented and felt. I can't do much about the workplace other than listen or vent occasionally myself but I guess I can avoid the volatile sections of Humzoo if I choose. That's one saving grace.
Good blog. Good thoughts and questions!