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RE: Whatcha doing? (a plague of over-communicating)
I agree with @honeydue. Reality became virtual, without us realizing. We are able to experience presence of each other, yet without any sense of touch. Artificially added emotions numbed us down to a point, where we no longer can communicate openly and sincerly, thoughtfully, with patience, always expecting instant response. That is the downside of technology. It is just way ahead of us. But it is still a matter of sobriety in usage.
On the bright side, I had a great chat with my mom today. In person ;)
What he said. How many people 'reacted' to our Facebook or Instagram photo; how many looked, but didn't react at all; how many bothered to comment--and with more than a canned "LOL" if they did?
You nailed it @honeydue: There's no point in asking "what have you been doing?" when you meet a friend for coffee. You already saw the pictures and commented something meaningless like "aww" or "love you". There are no surprises anymore. After a trip, in the olden days, you would've waited till they got back to hear all about their adventures. But now, you don't need to do that anymore. You can text them anytime you want, you know what their adventures are like, you have the live feed. We don't even have to wait for one-hour film developing, much less the two weeks it took back in my day. And yet, and yet, we have Picture Phones! We can FaceTime, Skype, or WhatsApp our grandchildren and our far-flung offspring, even our friends, cousins, former classmates! I'm not willing to give that up and return to the past, but at the same time, I lament what we have lost even as I celebrate what we have gained.
Conversational skills are not what they once were, and letter writing is dead. I love old library books filled with the correspondence of last-century authors.
And I love not bothering to dot every i or cross every t, or bother with periods at the end of sentences in texts....
Chats in person are great :) I'm happy for you. You are so right, reality is becoming more and more digital, which is seriously screwed up...