Dan Edelen:
Because I was being screamed at by every blogging guru to get a Twitter account, I did. As of today, I have yet to post anything through Twitter. Frankly, I still don’t get it. Why is anyone interested in knowing that I just took the trash to the curb or that I gave the dog a bath? In fact, if I were a criminal, Twitter and its mimics would be a gold mine. I mean, when some Twit tells the whole world, “Hey, I’m leaving tomorrow to go reef diving in Australia for the next month,” isn’t that akin to “Burglars, please break into my vacant house and rob me blind”?He continues:
Several years ago, I read a book by John Locke called Why We Don’t Talk to Each Other Anymore that was prescient in its arguments that we are becoming a relationally-disconnected society through the use of technology. Locke’s arguments were astonishingly accurate for 1999, a date that preceded all the relational techno-ware by which we connect to others today.Read the rest of this very insightful post from Dan Edelen.Locke notes the loss of nonverbals such as body language, which scientists have found make up the large majority of communication signals we send through social interaction. The result is a generation of people who mangle interpersonal, face-to-face communication because they are too inexperienced in reading other people’s nonverbal communication. Worse, they fail to develop their own nonverbals as a result, which means that even people who are skilled at this type of communication find them to be perpetual blank slates.
In some ways, we are becoming a society of autistics, lacking the basic communications skills that define us as human.
8 comments:
I'm doing it right now! Ahhhhhhhh I can't stop!!! I 'heart' facebook and email!!!!!
As a member of a christian band, I am an avid twitterer. I tweet mainly when I'm on the road with the band to let our fans know what we are up to. I do this to build relationships not walls. Through twitter people can get to know you, your personality, likes and dislikes, and then if we ever get the chance to meet it's an excellent way to start a conversation. Don't get me wrong, twitter or the like can not and should not take the place of human interaction, which is the most valuable way to share your story, but twitter is also not the bad thing it's being made to be. A lot of people tell me they don't get it, that's because there's nothing to get, some people like it, some don't, and the world continues to spin. Just a thought.
Adam
"As a member of a christian band..."
I just find that ironic in light of the title of the this blog entry.
j/k. No offense. Just a lighthearted jab :)
No offense taken "the sife", but being noticed produces fans, and fans produce money, which feeds my wife and two children, fuels our ministry, and keeps us on the road. No it's not about the money, but see if you can live a day without any. A christian band is a ministry and a business, but people wouldn't understand that who haven't been there and experienced it, just like I can't understand what one of my good friends is going through right now since he recently lost his father because mine is still living. Trust me that this is written sincerely to be informative because I hate being negatively labeled. Remember in every group there are some that will inevitably give the entire group a bad name.
Adam
Adam,
What is your band?
z
Four Days Late, you can find us at fourdayslatemusic.com or myspace.com/fourdayslate.
Adam
Zach,
It's funny, almost everyone has keyed into my dissing of the social networking software while ignoring the main point, which is found in the title. We are, indeed, a generation that is desperate for people to notice us, as if relative anonymity is the worst possible curse imaginable.
As someone who is considered a hyperextrovert, I find this odd. Even introverts are abandoning their introversion to compete in the public milieu of the Internet as equals with us extreme extroverts. And what is most odd is that many extroverts find the completely voyeuristic nature of all this social networking software to be even beyond us. There are some private places where even we feel we should not go, yet the Internet is awash with self-disclosure that would have made our grandparents blush.
dle,
What you're saying is true. There is a line that even the most extroverted would not cross, I myself included even though I tend to lean a little more to the introvert side of the scale.
Some of the things I read on these social networking sites makes me blush, let alone my grandparents. I guess the bottom line is, I enjoy sharing my opinion through blogging and twittering but it has not and will not take the place of my human relationships. Thank you for your viewpoint. I think I will write a blog about this.
Adam
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