A World of Communication

I remember in the fall of 1981 being 11 years old and having heard of an amazing technological advance. A friend of mine had come to school and told us about the "answering machine!" Apparently, when you were not at home to answer the phone, this fantastic futuristic device would answer it for you and take a message from whoever it was that called. After school that day, my friend Scott and I spent a few hours calling numbers out of the phone book, trying to get an answering machine, but we had no luck. But I remember thinking how cool that device was.

Then in about 1992, answering machines had become commonplace, but a new and more exciting device had come into being. A roommate of mine at the time, who was a real tech gear junkie, got one of the very first Motorola flip phones. I remember thinking how much it reminded me of the old Star Trek communicators. But man was it ever cool! There was hardly any coverage on it and the battery lasted for like two hours, but it was a phone that you could use anywhere. We were truly in the future.

Now it's 2007, and everyone has a cell phone. Even my mother in-law has a cell phone. And you can't call someone's home number, if they even have one, without getting the answering machine or the voice mail. I spend hours sometimes trying to get ahold of someone who has three phones (home, work, cell), and instant messenger on the computer. How can it be that with so many options for communication, we seem to be communicating less? I think the answer is that we are communicating more selectively. With more and more options for people to find us, we are finding it harder to be unreachable. Whenever I turn on my computer, people who I communicate with on instant messenger know that I am on. But then I have the option to "appear offline." I can refuse to answer my home phone and let the answering machine pick up. I can ignore my cell and let it go to voice mail. Then I can choose when I want to talk to all these people that are trying to talk to me. Of course they all have the same options that I do, so sometimes I end up having a conversation over voicemail. Have you ever been surprised, and even a little annoyed, when someone actually answers the phone when you were expecting to leave a message? I have. I like leaving messages for the same reasons I like instant messenger and email. You have that little buffer of time to organize your thoughts and to edit yourself that you don't have when you are talking to someone in "real time." Ever say something stupid and wish you could take it back? Guess what? With messenger you can! As long as you don't press enter...

I guess the point of this all is that we humans are constantly reinventing the way we communicate with each other, but in doing so I think it is important that we are careful that we don't isolate ourselves from each other. I have friends that I have only spoken to online, but I still have that desire to one day get together and meet them face to face. Sit down, have a pizza and talk to then in person. And that is good. I think once we start to lose that, we will lose some of what makes us human.