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Communication is dead, long live 2tlk

There was a time, not so long ago, when we would write (with ink and a feather) a letter to a loved one. This would then get put on a boat and sent back to the mother country. Then we waited. And waited. Maybe nine months or a year later, we got our response.

Imagine not only the care and detail that would have gone into these letters, but the joy at receiving one. Imagine the importance of describing the environment, what life was like, what people said, what they wore....now that, THAT was communication.

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Since then we have had so many advances in our communication technologies that we have, in fact (ironically), lost the art of communicating.

Less than 20 years ago I was writing letters to girls, wooing them with my prosaic. Nowadays I just SMS 'im hot4u dylm bbc' (I'm hot for you, do you like me, bring beer and chips) - to which the response would probably be '2cool4u, 2g4u, dly gal eod' (too cool for you, too good for you, don't like you, get a life, end of discussion).

Efficient? Yes. Interesting? No.

After a while I was writing emails to friends. But even then, the emails quickly became mundane. It's far too easy to write a quick three-liner saying 'all good here, how about at your end'. Sure technically there is communication going on, but nothing of quality.

Now it's SMS, Facebook and Twitter (note: be sure to check out @Yuranga!) where we're limited to 140 or 160 characters to share our messages with not only one person but half the world.

Is that communication?

Certainly it seems we have gone for quantity not quality. What does that all mean for our society? Is it a good thing? Does it mean we need to re-write the dictionary? Should we write books (in fact are books even relevant anymore?) with this short talk?

We even have 'emoticons' to express our feelings - so the entire spectrum of human emotion is now categorised in one of 12 emoticons.

What's next - a red, yellow or green light attached to our heads to indicate angry, middling or happy?

Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for change and advancement through technology - it's my business - but I get the feeling we're not actually advancing at all on the language front and, rather, regressing to caveman speak where a simple 'ug' could do so much.

Anyway, im ringl8, hand b4n!

Posted By: By ANDREW THORNBERRY on 4/11/2009 4:49:00 PM | Comments (3)

comments

Date: Newest first | Oldest first

I've pretty much had a crack at each of the main social networking tools over the past couple of years and I'm still a pretty solid Facebook user. FB was great for getting back in touch with old school mates who had disappeared off the radar, but I soon realised that I was also catching up with my 'real' friends online rather than in person. These things are all great in a time when time is precious, but it's a bit out of control I think. There are a few FB friends who just use it to show off - like a former colleague who's a journo and constantly name-drops or talks up his own abilities. Not to mention those who refuse to sleep because there's another 'What Twilight charachter are you' quiz to do. Anyways, I can definitely see where you're coming from Andrew - and I'm impressed that someone who's old enough to remember sending mail back to the mother country is so entrenched in technology.

Posted by undecided, 5/11/2009 8:51:47 AM

Hey thanks undecided...I am old, but.... yeah, the facebook think is a whole other story. When we often don't take the time to call or have coffee with friends, and yet we have 500 of them on facebook, you have to wonder what the meaning of friendship really is now. More about collecting that nurturing I guess. (man, I really sound like a grandmother)

Posted by yuranga, 5/11/2009 5:30:37 PM

As you say, the short hand that SMS and microblogging encourages does look like an emphasis on quantity over quality. Then again, ever since the invention of the telegraph we've worried about the affect of new communication technologies on society (see The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage). Some recent research in the US, by the well regarded Pew Internet & American Life Project, suggests that Internet users are still very involved in their local area and local communities. In fact, the new technologies are "used as much for local contact as they are for distant communication". So perhaps its not all bad?

Posted by chieftech, 17/11/2009 10:05:24 AM

Andrew Thornberry blogs on all things technological, from hardware and gadgets to the best of the web. Mr Thornberry is the owner and director of the IT and web development company Yuranga.