I had my students give impromptu speeches last week, and one of the topics they could choose was whether they preferred to communicate face to face or via technology. Almost everyone chose to speak on this topic, and almost everyone that spoke about it chose face to face communication as their preference. I was a little surprised, considering the amount of time that they seem to spend texting and Facebooking their friends, even in class, but they had some great points.
One of the responses really resonated with me. One student gave an example of how frustrating technology can be by talking about when her Mom would send her long e-mails and expect a long response almost immediately. Instead, she let the message sit in her inbox, untouched, because it seemed like more of a “chore” to write her back. Then her Mom called her up and asked if she had received the e-mail and asked why she had not written her back, and made the point that it would have been better if she had just picked up the phone and called her up.
I can ENTIRELY relate to this scenario. Whenever I receive long-ish e-mails, I never reply to them right away, because I know it will take more time and contemplation to get it right. So, yes, it sits in my inbox, waiting for me to do something with it, and many times weeks go by before I get around to it. Short e-mails? No problem. But the “letter” types get me every time.
I know this is totally wrong, and I should make time for them, but I think there is something else here that my student brought up. Why do we rely on e-mail to build and maintain relationships? E-mail is an awesome tool, but you don’t always get the immediate feedback, there are long silences between responses, which sometimes can be misinterpreted as disinterest, along with a host of other problems. You can get so much more across in a five minute telephone call, but I know very few people that will call me up to “just talk” or for that matter, ask me to go out for coffee or something. I know it is not always possible, but I really think we rely on technology to “keep in touch” but in the process, we lose some of the closeness and deepness that more rich “channels” provide.
It is too easy to have many acquaintances, “Facebook friends” like my students like to call them, and not many close friends. It is too easy to say “I’m too busy” to make time in my schedule to develop our friendships. Well, maybe we need to make it a priority to develop those friendships in an intentional, face-to-face way.
I know I do.
