Is electronic communication taking the place of real Friendship »
by Theresa Stevens on January 5th, 2009
I have a friend who moved to California about five years ago. She was a very good friend, but with the huge distance separating us we’ve kind of lost touch. A few weeks ago, she sent me an email to wish us a Merry Christmas, and I sent one back. Last night, I was playing around on my Blackberry and I noticed she was online with Google Talk. I sent her a message and proceeded to have a 30-minute electronic conversation with her. We got caught up on what’s been going on in our lives in the last year (that was the last time I communicated with her…electronically).
It was great to “talk” with her, but it got me thinking. Do we rely on electronic communication too much these days? What ever happened to calling someone up on the actual (gasp) phone and yakking for an hour? I have friends in their 20s who laugh about how their mom called them to dinner via chat when they were kids. And they were in the same house!!! We got three actual Christmas cards in the mail this year, but I got about 8 electronic cards.
While writing this article, I paused a few times to check posts on Plurk and Facebook. I’m also logged into Yahoo, Google Talk and MSN Live Messenger via a multi-protocol chat client. I have my work email open and it notifies me when a new message comes in. I also have Gmail open in a separate tab in my browser. I have a phone on my desk, a Blackberry on my hip and my personal cell phone in my purse. Is this too much?
Ironically, I’m writing this article to be posted on a blog where people can leave electronic comments to discuss the article. My article is preventing people from having an actual conversation.
This morning when I dropped my daughter off at day care, I watched her playing with her friends and wondered… How many more years will she actually play before her friendships become electronic?
