Social Networking...is it the end of conversation?

I'm sad about what texting has done to communication in America. It used to be that when you were with people, you were with them, and they were with you. Now when you’re with people, they are distracted by their texts, checking email and Facebook while they talk to you and thinking about their latest tweet.

I am all for Facebook, and communicating through text, and keeping track of friends – but I am not sure I like what it’s doing to me, and what it’s doing to people in general. I think social networking is making it harder for people to communicate in normal ways.

Here’s the thing – people aren’t really able to have phone conversations anymore. They’re so used to talking in clipped sentences that phone conversations are becoming hard. Where I work – many people just “drop in” and expect to be able to get an appointment. While it’s true we do walk-ins we can only do them if we have time/people to take the appointments, and usually we just can’t. It seems like it would make much more sense to call ahead and see if there are available appointments rather than wasting time driving over here, walking up the stairs and discovering you can’t get in.

But young people just aren’t into calling. They text their friends, and in many cases their parents. They keep up over the summer on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. They aren’t able to hold conversations for very long before getting distracted by their phones, they go to the movies and text during movies (why you’d waste $9.50 is beyond me), they have their ear buds in their ears listening to their ipods a majority of the time...it's just sad.

I'm also finding myself more interested in being nosey about other's lives -even people I don't even know! I also find myself thinking I'd rather not talk with someone right now, but perhaps I need some information or just want to see how they are - so I'll email them to get information or to discuss something when phoning them would save so much time and be so much more personal. I think I'm getting socially lazy!

Those are my all too interesting thoughts on social networking - in a social networking environment!