Maybe I’m just getting old, but I remember the days when we used to communicate with one another via good ol’ fashioned email! It was so liberating to dispense with all of the intricacies of face-to-face communication. No more worrying about body language, which they say accounts for over 50% of what actually gets communicated. Never mind intonation, which is reported to convey almost 40% of the meaning of what we communicate. With email, all we need is words: text, alphanumeric characters, perhaps the occasional emoticon - leaving the recipient to interpret our message in whatever way they see fit! Let them use their imagination, as they should! Email: beautiful in its simplicity, allowing us to communicate one-tenth of the content with half of the effort. Talk about a no-brainer!
Unfortunately, email is still pretty complicated. It can be somewhat overwhelming to grapple with questions like whether or not to write in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS or whether or not to include pesky punctuation, not to mention that there are so many words to choose from, and really no practical limit to how long an email can be.
In such a modern age, it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a solution to this newfound dilemma. Introducing texting and micro-blogging*, which have overcome many of the shortfalls of email! Liberated by the advent of the mobile device, we can now communicate with one another from anywhere at any time, like from the bathroom, while crossing a busy street, or from a boring business meeting. Also, we need not worry about choosing from the myriad words in the cumbersome English language! In general, a good text or tweet* can only contain up to 140 characters; certainly not enough room for superfluous punctuation. With this relieved burden, you may even want to take advantage of making up your own obscure acronyms just for fun, like MIRL (meet in real life - which is so retro!) or MTFBWU (may the force be with you - but I’m sure you knew that one!). As if that weren’t enough, we can now easily broadcast our communication to everyone, yes everyone - even people we don’t know and people we don’t want to know! Incredible! WWTTON (what will they think of next)?
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Principle Based Evaluation: Communication via modern technology is not conducive to relationship so we must make the extra effort to insure relational communication.
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*Micro-Blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to send brief text updates and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, typically text messaging, instant messaging and email and viewed/received in similar fashion or via the web. Twitter is arguably the most popular micro-blogging, social-networking site/service. User’s updates are text-based posts of up to 140 characters known as “tweets.”
Tim Stauffer
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... Your insights are right on. I read this article a number of months ago, and was just reminded of it again when I read this article in the Wall Street Journal, which touches on some of the same issues as you do as well as a number of others. How Facebook Ruins Friendships http://online.wsj.com/article/...49142.html |
Ashley McCuen
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... Wow, WWTTON (what will they think of next)!! With blogging, facebook, myspace, twitter and so many other popular networking/communication sites, I am starting to become a little worried. As a highschooler, I enjoy the quick and easy way you can just shoot someone an email, send a quick text, or publish a short story on your blog. But, what concerns me is that, as a culture, we are being "dumbed down." Most people no longer speak to one another, and if they do, it's in acronyms or abbreviations. We live in a culture where it is not uncommon for 2 people to be texting one another...from across the table. While I think some texting, facebook and blogs are fine and actually very useful, I wonder at far our nation will go? What will be next? Will we lose the wonderful language and conversation that we are privileged with? Will our values and high standards be lost with the excuse of the internet? If this much transformation can happen in the communication realm of society in a mere five years, what will twenty years look like, or thirty? I for one, am ALN (a little nervous)... |
Jessica Rankin
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... I completely agree with this. I just recently wrote a paper about a cultural problem that is being overlooked, and I chose the topic of "Teen Talk." With the way that texting/facebooking/instant messaging/etc, it is revolutionizing the way that teenagers talk. Phrases like “gotta,” “wanna,” “gonna,” “cuz,” “omg,” “ttyl,” and many more are becoming part of everyday conversation. Middle school papers have been turned in with an alarming amount of grammatical and vocabulary errors. Kids speak in the exact way that they do when texting each other. I've seen billboard advertisements by comcast and other national companies that use words like "gonna" and "wanna." Is our everyday talk and communication getting so bad that even national companies are using language made up of words that are not even words? The way that teens are talking over electronics is starting to truly have an affect on how people communicate in real life. If we want to be able to articulate our arguments, beliefs, rights, etc, we must know how to speak in an affective way that will make us stand out from others. It is highly unlikely that someone who uses words like “wanna” instead of “want to,” or says “cuz” instead of “because” in their speech is going to be given the same respect as someone who speaks eloquently and uses correct vocabulary to get their point across. |
