Whatcha doing? (a plague of over-communicating)

in #life5 years ago

I've been thinking about how we communicate. And how this easy access to technology is driving conversation into the grave. Have you noticed that?
People nowadays are constantly talking. You can know what someone else is doing 24/7, you can know when they're active on social media, you can view their stories on Instagram or Facebook and know where they are what they've been doing. In broad terms, you know. Oh, so-and-so is posting pictures from a cafe or they put up a short clip of a concert or something. Means they're alright.

And while it's nice to know your friends and loved ones are okay, it also seems to me that it's killing relationships between people.
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.
Say your friend's gone on a trip somewhere. Normally, 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.

And again, I love being able to keep in touch with friends and everything, but I also feel it's kinda ruining our relationship, you know? I'm thinking maybe a bit of distance is good.
And it's stopping us from creating new connections. Because nowadays, you're never alone. You always have your trust instant messaging service with you, even when you're in a far away country, with no one you know. And instead of looking at the world around and communicating with new people, you get scared and spend your entire time chatting with people back home. Which isn't why you went there, is it?
Or who knows, maybe that's just me...


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Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Technology is killing any sort of romantic relationships as well. Any courtship. Any mystery. Out the window with this constant access to another person. Something I've always found a bit weird is that men nowadays don't ask for your phone number anymore, they ask you how to find you on Facebook. Not all, naturally, but many I've met do that.
And so, you befriend them on Facebook and before they can even ask you out, you're already fucking sick of the guy.

"Hi."
"Hi. What you doing?"
"Nothing much, you?"
"Eating"
"Oh, good for you. What?"

...Etc.

And I mean, I don't want to know when you got out of the shower or what kind of cereal you had for breakfast this morning. You don't need to know everything about someone and all this social media is doing just that. After you've stalked his Facebook page a little, chatted a couple of times about "what you doing", you already know more than you'd like to. And say you do get to set a date with this guy, what are you gonna say? What did you do today? You already know. It's absurd.
Does save you from some pretty weird situations, though, I'll give em that. The way a person speaks or texts says a lot about them and sometimes, it says you don't want to go out with this person, so that saves you a couple hours.

But mostly, this constant access into someone's life is a bad thing. I think it's the same with couples, as well. There's no mystery anymore, no time to miss the fucker. If you can chat all the time and know what they're doing all the fucking time, it's almost like you're there with them all goddamn day, and I'm sorry, but no amount of cutesy lovey-dovey stuff can convince me you'd want to be there 24/7.

Reminds me of a joke,

Couple were texting, some time at night. And the girl writes "If you're crying, I want you to send me your tears. If you're laughing, I want you to send me your joy. I want to share everything with you."
On the other end, a moment of silence, then she sees the guy begin to type, gets all excited.
"Darling, I'm on the toilet. What should I send?"

It's very true. I mean, let there be a little mystery, a little time to meet someone. I've never been a fan of this befriending someone on Facebook thing. Because it leads to conversation and it's usually someone you don't really know and it's rather hard to get to know them over texts, so it's just plain awkward. And say you do know them, say you've been friends for a while or even together for a while. There's no real reason not to text, since mostly everyone has constant Internet access these days, so this leads to oversharing. You know, there's only so much conversation you can have that can be exciting and interesting and complex and all. At some point, you run out of things to say and these days, you run out a lot quicker.
I don't want to chat with you all the fucking time, it's weird. I don't want to know where you are at any moment during a day. What happened to wondering? What the hell happened to mystery?

So, what do you think? This whole technology thing - good or bad? Or rather, this whole over-communicating trend, what do you think?

Thanks for reading,

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This is still a bit of an odd concept for me, perhaps because we didn't grow up with this level of technological communication, so we still do things the old way. Imagine not being asked for your phone number, but you're facebook account instead! Yet I guess four younger generations, this is the new reality. I think it may also be a bit slower to be the norm here, because there are areas in Australia where you're out of mobile range, so we're still used to doing things the old way when it calls for it.

You're so right about it being good to have something to catch up on at the end of the day. That's what hubby and I do, face to face, rather than via text. Perhaps our children have picked up the habit a bit, because my eldest actually talks to her closest friend on the phone instead of just texting her. Not sure about my youngest, though. None of us are big facebook users, either, so I forget to check there for updates on friends when they're away and just message occasionally instead. I was wondering, today, how all the mum's at gym knew about what our friend had been up to on her break, until I realised it had been coming up in their Facebook feeds. I was waiting for her return to hear all about her trip.

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Imagine not being asked for your phone number, but you're facebook account instead!

I find this really weird, too :/ Whenever someone asks for my FB I know I'm not going to have a good time with that person. And I don't get why they don't ask for phone numbers - I mean, it's the same device you're using there, dude. And I think people are more likely to answer a call rather than a message....But maybe that's just me.

. Perhaps our children have picked up the habit a bit, because my eldest actually talks to her closest friend on the phone instead of just texting her.

Oh that's really good <3 Phone calls are a dying thing, I feel and it's a shame because they're this amazing invention...So is real life, for that matter.

I was waiting for her return to hear all about her trip.

Well yeah, but you'll have stuff to talk to her about, as opposed to the others, right? :)

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...

I think so too. Sometimes it seems to me that we all fell into one huge trap. Initially, technologies were created in order to simplify and improve our communication. Yes, now we don’t have to write letters and wait until the addressee receives them from the postman; now we don’t have to call another city and ask the operator to connect us with this person.
But what do we see? Despite all the "benefits" of our civilization, we have become much further. We are alone, although we have friends. We are alone a million times, because the letters on the screen are not yet friendship and not relationships.

We are alone a million times, because the letters on the screen are not yet friendship and not relationships.

That is so, so beautifully put. You're so right, we're alone, not in spite of the technology but because of it. Because now we have an excuse not to be with people anymore...

Thank you for commenting!

You're welcome, dear friend!) Thanks for talking about such cool and important topics!

Aw thank you :) That's so nice!

I didn't sleep well last night.
I went to Pilates this morning.
I drank some coffee, haven't felt like eating yet today.
I'm currently writing a comment on Honeydue's post.

What are you doing!

Uh sorry about your night - I didn't sleep well either :/ But your comment sure cheered me up :D

Well, right now I'm replying to your comment, listening to some music and daydreaming a little :)

Hope you sleep better tonight and don't forget to share a sleep report with me :P

Slightly better, though still uneasy - yourself? :P

Much better in amount of hours (2 versus 9 :D), but head is foggy today :') Thanks for sharing your sleep report :P

You too <3 Sure :))

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