With the advent of e-devices we have lost the art of human-to-human conversation. And it is hurting us. Communicating in person has many benefits which we miss out on when we send an electronic message.
Communicating in the presence of others goes back to our early days when all we had was each other. In fact, most things in life involving our well-being go back to these times. We would meet and talk about the problems of the day, share stories about how we killed a sabre-toothed tiger, how we hadn't washed for two months and it felt good, what your best friend is doing, how to keep safe when going for water, that sort of thing.
During these early communications, we were not just sharing stories, we were socialising. We were learning about life, learning about social skills, learning how to interact with others, telling others how we felt. Importantly, socialisation involved emotions.
There is no emotional connection when we converse electronically. We don't learn about manners - your turn, my turn - when we use emails. We can't convey our true feelings in a text message, if we do we exaggerate it. We can't read body language in an instant message. We may say something hurtful on FaceBook. In short, we say in an e-message what we wouldn’t say in person.
Don’t get me wrong, I love communicating on e-devices. If you were to ask me what I thought was bad about e-devices, we don't talk enough to others in person. I say this as I send out an e-message on LinkedIn. That's okay, I have three meetings later today where I will be talking to people in person, actual people. Scary hah!
I will get my 'people' fix today, will you?