On the Evils of Constant Communication

Communicating is where I get my energy—communicating by myself or with other people (for instance I’m blogging right now because I haven’t spoken to anyone for the entire afternoon, but have been sitting, internet-less in the library and have many, many things to say!). I’m happy to sit and daydream or journal or blog by myself. I’m also happy to talk with an old friend for an hour on the phone (30 minutes is the rule these days). I’m also happy to write a letter or read my emails. I’m happy to drink coffee with friends and gossip about departmental politics. I’m happy to mix at a party, or better yet be the hostess for one. I’m happy to listen to someone vent or talk through a problem. Essentially, I am crazy about being with people, although I need some time to be by myself, as well.

What seems to be getting popular these days, however, is neither being alone, nor being with people—it is a constant in between state in which you are communicating to an anonymous audience and receiving a plethora of communications that are directed to an anonymous audience, and not specifically to you. I am going to group Twitter-ing in this group, as well as facebook newsfeeds and gchat messages. This gives us a way to be with people in our isolation (when I’m bored and lonely of comps studying, I do just study ghcat away messages every 10 minutes; plus I have the constant urge [which I resist as much as possible] to update mine frequently with whines or reports of how my day is going). What if this is the worst of both worlds? What if this gives us neither community nor solitude and thus saps our ability to participate in community properly when it is time to return to it?

I need alone time (it has to be short and frequently interrupted, as my roommates can vouch for due to my frequent excursions from my room just to say one or two things, and then go back in). If I don’t have time alone, I get stressed as I’ve not been able to process my previous interactions and unwind and rest. If your alone time is filled with text messages and facebook and emails and other such merely marginally meaningful interactions, then that solitude becomes less able to serve as a catharsis, preparing us for future social engagement. Rather, it becomes a quasi-sustainable method of poor quality, pseudo-social interactions. We don’t need roommates (at least ones we love) and families and friends who live down the road (thanks, The Others!).

Goodness gracious, I’m upset. I’m upset because one of my students emailed me from his blackberry today (a freshman! Imagine!). I’m upset because my priest thought that when I said, “I’m buying a car,” I meant this minute, as opposed to this month (obviously not upset at him, Dear Fr. Dinousaurhead, but at the idea that I would presume to update him on little immediate details of my life as they happen). Furthermore, in his email response, he introduced me to the word, “Treo” (still not sure what that means): “I took your last email to mean that you were AT THAT MOMENT buying a car. Why would I think that? Because everyone else emails constantly...in the midst of whatever they are doing...from their iPhone, Blackberry or Treo. So I just presumed you were doing the same. I pictured you sitting in the chair at the dealership, signing the papers, getting the keys, driving away in your Hummer. Being an old fashioned guy, I'm glad to know you were just using email in the traditional manner.” To be fair, I had written, “I am buying a car at the moment; I will email you again when I've bought it and can make my way out to your now far distant parish” (admittedly ambiguous).

The thing is, I’m not against technological innovation. Some people need things like this in order to facilitate the convenience of work so that they can spend more time with their families. I’m just worried that we aren’t considering the way in which we communicate forms us and has a pervasive influence on the rest of our social interactions, and, indeed, the rest of our life (Kudos to Whigwham and Wendell for avoiding Facebook). I’m most worried about our younger siblings who don’t know what life is like without constant communication. That is not childhood. Thankfully, we come from Amish, Pennsylvania, so Ilana has no cell phone.