Reach Out and Touch Someone

October 3, 1998

A couple of nights ago my dad and I spent about five hours upgrading my computer. While I saved about $600 dollars doing it myself, I came closer to having a heart attack and I think my blood pressure went up as well. Nothing gets me more frustrated than computers, although golfing runs a close second.
One of our problems was a small switch about half the size of a match head. The position of this small switch on the motherboard was the difference between my keyboard and monitor working. That discovery took about an hour. After a couple of other minor setbacks, we added Windows 95, putting the cherry on top of my sundae of circuits and wires.
I drove e home, excited to feel upgraded and connected once again. My 300 MHz processor and my new Pentium II motherboard would speed up my performance, and my new 56k V.90 modem would enable me to access the Net even faster. After all, if I couldn’t get on the Internet, I’d have to go to the library for resources.
It so happened that while my computer was down, I did go to the library, and I didn’t hate it. In fact, I met some friends there and we had a really nice visit. I got to thinking, is this what my computer kept me from? For a second I stopped and was thankful my computer had been down, something I would never say in front of my computer. All computers are temperamental and will lock up or “perform illegal actions” if they hear that. Does technology actually help my life, or does it hinder me?
We drive our cars past one another on the freeway to the automatic bank teller where we punch in the numbers we are recognized by. We call from these “cubicles on wheels” on our cell phones and leave messages on our friend’s voice mail. The more we are surrounded by machines, the more we adapt to our environment and become automated like them. We run around performing our programmed task to near perfection and empty our documents, thoughts and private things onto hard drives and walk out into the public with nothing to say.
We are losing the art of communication, or as my grandpa referred to it, “the gift of gab.” In an attempt to reach out to the world, we put more distance between each other. Instead of walking next door to speak to a neighbor, we call them on the phone. We receive a false sense of connection with humanity and are lulled into feeling we are more intimate, when in fact, we are being more distant. It’s no wonder as a society we are having increasingly more trouble interacting.
As we advance technologically, we regress socially. In Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he states, “Ten percent of our communication is represented by the words we say, 30 percent is represented by sounds, and 60 percent by our body language.” This means 90 percent is lost in e-mail and chat lines, and 60 percent is lost on the telephone.  or the Internet smile will never convey the warmth or sincerity of the one in person. And “lol” (lots of laughs) will never express the unique gift of laughter that can be contagious and lift a soul.
We still see remnants of people skills today, but there exist only fossils of what it used to be. We are still influenced by some past cultural protocol as evidenced by the emphasis to quit a job in person. And it is still considered rude to break off a relationship on the telephone.
My grandparents live in Gridley and I’ve called them many times. It has been several months since I’ve found time to visit with them in person, although it takes less than 30 minutes to drive there. I’ll be making a trip to see them this weekend. After all, there is still no symbol on the Internet for “hug.” Or if there is, I don’t want to know.