My love/hate relationship...

...with technology.

Remember how...
"Video killed the radio star"?
The Nintendo killed the Atari?
The cell phone killed the beeper?
The CD killed the cassette tape and then the ipod killed CDs?
The blog killed the written journal?

This post is dedicated to my love/hate relationship with technology and where it's bringing us as a society. I know this is beating a dead horse and this conversation has taken place many, many times at dinner tables around the country but it has really started to resonate with me lately.

Technology is killing our personal relationships.

Emailing, texting, IMing, Tweeting, Facebook-ing, and chat forums are all vehicles that we're using to cultivate and maintain relationships. This is fantastic in it's own right. Haven't heard from a friend in 10 years? Look them up on Facebook, stalk their pictures, pretend to care that it's their birthday...it's fabulous! God knows that I LOVE me some internet time and even built some amazing friendships in chat forums with a group of girls that I call my FIFs.

I am just as guilty as the next person of using all of these vehicles to keep in touch. I even recognize the irony of this post being that I am typing it for the entire interwebs to see instead of handwriting it in my journal...oh wait, I don't even HAVE a journal anymore!
Point being, I do love technology. It's amazing...

However, I read an article today that the average cell phone user receives 347 text messages per month and only 204 phone calls. This made me sad for some reason. Why not just pick up the phone? I understand that it is much easier to text something to your husband or wife, such as, "I'm baking chicken tonight for dinner, is that ok?" (taken from a recent outgoing text to Dustin), or most things work related can be handled via email to cut back on the small talk... but what about emotionally charged issues that are being taken care of via texting and emailing?

That's where (some of) my issue is. It isn't right.

My feeling is that so many people are hiding behind keyboards these days. It is so much easier to type a Dear John letter or vent out a huge work gripe to your boss over an instantaneous email than to pick up the phone and say, "Let's talk", or better yet, "Let's meet for lunch so we can talk". Keyboards give you balls of steel, is what it comes down to.

The problem is that too much is lost in translation. What you're typing is the way that it is sounding in your head but the way it is being read can be totally different due to perception. I have been guilty of responding to emotionally charged emails myself, so I am being a bit of a hypocrite here, but it has backfired on me every.single.time. Maybe it's just that I don't know how to communicate effectively over a keyboard but it upsets me that I even have to try.

I miss the days when we all had to deal with conflict face to face or on the phone. You could hear the emotions. You could interject thoughts. You could respond to accusations with a voice instead of PUTTING THE CAPS ON FOR EMPHASIS.

Then there are obviously other issues with technology that are much more substantial concerns, such as all of the online bullying, sex-ting before the age of 16, cyber stalking, and sexual predators but I suppose none of those are hitting that close to home with me yet. I plan on just keeping Lily trapped in a bubble so they NEVER hit close to home.
I digress.

In summary, and for your ironic pleasure:
FIND YOUR BACKBONE, PICK UP THE EFFING PHONE AND TALK IT OUT.
It just makes more sense.
/soapbox