The other day, I was sitting with my grandma as she pulled out her address book to make her round of family phone calls. I looked at the archaic artifact, completely baffled. Who still uses an address book? I didn’t realize that older people still did this sort of thing, particularly as I know that you can easily get good cell phones for seniors, but clearly my grandma likes to do it her way. Which is a tangible way at that. . . Everyone I know is either saved on my phone or I find via social media and that’s not a good thing.
The older generation genuinely follow up on their correspondence, and not because they have to – but because they want to. They call family, just to check in and chat. A birthday is rarely forgotten. My 75-year-old aunt has lived across the Atlantic Ocean since I was a kid, and she has never forgotten to call me on an occasion. As for our generation, we Facebook. We text. And if it’s an emergency or we are too lazy to text (the latter being the most common), we pick up the phone. Granted, social media has allowed us to reconnect to old friends and connect us with new ones, but has it jeopardized our communication skills? I think it has.
We write on each other’s walls on birthdays and say congrats on a status, but when was the last time you called a relative ‘just because’. When was the last time you hand wrote a letter, sent a postcard or gave someone a greeting card that wasn’t free online? Maybe you have, maybe it’s just me. I’m almost certain it’s not just me.
The way I see it, our conversations are quicker, our level of concentration and attention has become equal to that of a fruit fly. At social gatherings, we all stare at our phones and when hanging out with family, each person has a laptop, phone, or iPad glaring in their face – and I’m convinced it’s because of how over-stimulated our brains are from our phones and social media. Why write someone’s phone number down? If I need it, I’ll send them a message on Facebook. We pretend not to see each other’s phone calls (oh, don’t play coy. Everyone’s guilty of this at one point!), but then get upset when someone doesn’t return our call.
What worries me the most is the thought of what our kids will be like: Will they even understand the basic social etiquette of calling someone on their birthday? Or will a Facebook wall be all that is needed?
Just food for thought.