Before You Hit That “Send” Button
A classmate of my daughter has cancer. I received an email. Someone died after a long illness. I received a text. An acquaintance made a “pseudo-sexual” joke with/about me. I read it on Facebook.
We are busier than ever, more social than ever. Between our personal lives, our professional lives and the demands created by both, we barely have time to breathe, let alone talk to people. The time we do have is precious and we prioritize how we wish to spend it. Many of us fill that limited time with family and good friends. Others fill it by volunteering or by trying to make the world a better place. Still others fill it with sleep. Connections, real ones, are hard to make.
As a child, I spent hours on the phone with my friends. I spent summer days and evenings with those same people. We filled our time together. My daughters spend their time texting their friends. Texting enables them to keep in touch with camp friends around the country, but it doesn’t, and shouldn’t, replace face-to-face communication and bonding. They get that in the summer, during their “no-phones-allowed-at-summer-camp-time.”
In some ways, computers have made it easier to connect to people. Think of how many old friends and acquaintances you’ve rediscovered on Facebook; how many new people you’ve met via Twitter. At the same time, social media has made people so aware of each others’ lives that there is no longer any need for small talk. In some cases, social interaction is becoming more awkward—we know almost too much about each other and we know it immediately. We follow them and assume that by doing so, we’re best friends.
We are becoming dependent on instant gratification. There is less expectation to slowly learn about people, to gradually reveal ourselves to each other, to enjoy the puzzle that each person is. And with that increased speed, comes carelessness.
Everyone learns to mind their tongues, to think before they speak. We’re not all perfect at it; far from it. But when we talk to people, we see the affect our words have by the looks on their faces. We can modulate our tones and we have more time to dig ourselves out of any hole we might inadvertently have dug ourselves.
Some of us are better with the written word than the spoken word. I, for one, am. I can never think of appropriate comebacks when engaged in a verbal argument with someone. Put me in front of the keyboard, though, and my fingers fly. And that is a definite benefit of using computers (or their equivalent) to converse with people. In theory, we have more time to consider what we want to say. We have a delete key to get rid of mistakes. We can rewrite multiple times until it’s just right.
But too often, we don’t do that. We assume that because we’re friends with someone via social media, we “know” them and know them well enough to joke with them in ways that may be inappropriate. Only the best of the best writers can convey tone in their written words, and I’ve yet to see anyone do it well when confined to 140 characters or less. We spread news via email or text because it’s faster and we can reach more people concurrently. I get that. I appreciate being kept informed. But sometimes, instead of humanizing a situation, texting and emails can actually dehumanize it. It takes away some of the emotion, some of the dimension.
People need to learn when, how and why to communicate. It’s not as easy as it sounds. We have to second and even third guess ourselves. We have to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, consider all possible reactions, and then pause before we hit send. Immediacy is great. Group information is great. Jokes, when handled well, are funny. But not everything that enters one’s head should pass immediately through our fingertips and into cyberspace.
Sometimes, our words need our voice.
