Is The Art Of Conversation Dying As Use Of Notebook computers And The Internet Grow?
Emails, Blogging, Instant messaging, Social networks, all are fast and simple means of keeping up with others via a laptop. Then there are cellular phones which allow folk to send texts to one another, some of the high-spec ones also permit emails, instant messaging, blogging, social networking, just like a computer.
Sit on any form of public transport and you will see folk sending texts through their mobile phones, reading texts they are receiving, but only very occasionally are they actually chatting. It would look like they are much happier to converse via the written word than the spoken word.
This is no surprise really, as the Internet Business is growing and more Online Jobs become available, folk are used to speaking via email to colleagues, clients, suppliers, employees, etc, so the fact that this falls into their personal habits is just one small progression of their normal habits.
For those who Work From Home, instant messaging may be the format for how they keep in communication with remote employees, so again it is no surprise that they also use this method in their personal lives. One thing I find disheartening, though, is when you enter a social networking site and see girlfriends and boyfriends chatting to each other over the social network, such normal things as “when will tea be ready”, which indicate that both parties are in the same place, probably the same room, but prefer to talk through their computer than face to face.
So many job adverts you see specify a good communicator and I think that over time this is going to be a lot more difficult to find, as face to face conversations becomes a thing of history. My own children are happy to text their chums, all day and night, but are not comfortable calling them and talking. Could it be that with all this Internet Business, they have discovered new ways of communicating which do not require speech?
I think this would be a real pity and we would miss much if we stopped having verbal communications. Such a lot is transmitted in the manner in which we talk which cannot be replicated in writing. How often does it happen that you are speaking to somebody over the phone, and they will ask if you are ok because they can hear in your voice that you are angry or in pain? This would not happen in text.
Written words can be misunderstood in a way which is far less likely to happen in verbal conversations. A totally meaningless message from one person may be taken apart by the receiver and, depending upon their own frame of mind at the time, be viewed as offensive. Had they spoken with each other face to face, this upset would never have happened, the meaning of the message would be clearly delivered and received.
Obviously with the growth in Online Jobs and as more folk Work From Home, there is a requirement for written communication, but let us try to keep alive the art of verbal discussions. It is a real art and it would be such a shame to lose it.
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