Time for face facts, kiddies: we’re becoming spoiled by convenience. We no longer have to stay home waiting for the phone to ring when we want to be asked for a date. Instead, we are constantly accessible to one another via cell phones, voicemail, text messaging, email and innumerable social networking and internet dating website.
At this very moment, there are…hold on, counting…7 different ways (probably more, in truth) that people who know me can get a hold of me. Seven! I remember being young and having a pen pal in Portugal and waiting weeks for letters, and making my mom take messages from boys I liked when I left the house. And that was that.
It’s not only communication that’s been affected by technology. We no longer have to go to the bank to do our banking. Or to the post office to send mail. We don’t even have to go to the grocery store if we don’t want to. Hell, it’s not even necessary to be home to watch a favorite TV show because it will undoubtedly be online a few hours later. Maybe you’re thinking, “I know! Isn’t technology awesome?! ”
Well, maybe. But with all this cyber-living, we’ve got to get the word out that if we don’t hold on to our humanity with an iron grip, we could easily lose it. At the very least, keep these ideas in mind when deciding how much of the future to bring into your present:
In bed
I once dated this guy who had a favorite pastime of snuggling up in bed with me, getting all cozy and watching a movie. On his laptop. On the bed. Right in between us. Excuse me? Ew, no! Just…no, definitely not. I hated that and my inability to break him of his Macbook-in-bed habit might have contributed in some way to the failure of the relationship.
Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big thing but come on…we’re “plugged in” all the time, via cell phones, computers, etc. When you are in bed with a special someone, that is certainly no time for electronic anything (okay, certain battery-operated apparatuses are permissible). If fact, the opposite should be true; bedroom time with lovers should be the most natural, human contact-based time of the day.
Coffee shops
You heard it here first: the days of laptops in coffee shops need to end. Right now. And this coming from someone who works full-time from her laptop and who loves coffee shops.
But here’s what I’m tired of seeing: dozens of interesting looking people all sitting in a room, consuming food and beverages and hiding behind lit-up screens. Some of them are working but some, I swear, just do this to look cool and to have their computers handy as a social security blanket. What a waste of potential human interaction.
The worry exists that we’re at serious risk of becoming completely socially under-developed because advances in technology have made actual human-to-human interaction almost completely unnecessary. And as someone who personally couldn’t live without the physical subtleties of communication (not the mention the proven physiological benefits of being around and physically interacting with other live humans), I find this heartbreaking.
So coffee shops are where we’re starting. Leave the laptop at home, folks and flirt with a cute stranger. You know that’s what you want to do there anyway.
Public Transportation
We’ve had cell phones in out lives for long enough now that we should really have all the unspoken rules committed to memory. But, sigh, you know people…if no one is forcing them to exercise common courtesy and good sense, most of them won’t.
So I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but I’ll say it again: please, please refrain from gabbing on your cell when you’re on the bus or train. Or airplane. Or check-out line. Basically any place where you’re surrounded by large groups of strangers who could give a rat’s ass about the details of your best friend’s love life, cut the phone time.
If you just can’t wait, that’s what text messaging is for. But again, as previously mentioned under “Coffee Shops”, it wouldn’t kill you to take this time to strike up a conversation with someone new. You never know.
