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Cell phones.  iPhones.  Texting.  Computers.  Twitter.  Facebook.  In a world that seems so bent on getting the most new and improved gadget or software, I can’t understand why there is so little communication today.  Why is it so difficult to keep in touch or remain friends with others with all of this technology?

I will confess.  I have a Twitter and Facebook account.  I’m in the process of having a book published and so it was suggested that I begin my legacy of communication on Facebook.  I have a Twitter account because it links to these published articles.  

In all honesty, I’m on Facebook, and I have about 28 confirmed friends linked to me.  Okay, 29 as of today.  But that’s not saying much.  Small numbers compared to most of the folks on Facebook.  These 29 friends are people I adore, yet don’t hear from often enough.  I joined Facebook partly because, for some of them, sending an email to me was a chore. 

But what I see on Facebook is that no one is communicating at all.  I see countless posts of “had a long day, now doing this,” yadda, yadda, yadda and so on.  Once in a while, if it’s a funny or curious status comment that someone posts, you may see three or four responses.   Aside from that, the only other item I see posted are the stupid, illiterate quizzes available on Facebook—the quizzes where the creator doesn’t bother to use a spell checker.   Just for fun, I did a few quizzes.  One of the quizzes appeared as if it had been created by a third grader—the grammar, the spelling was astronomically poor.  The funniest thing?  Every single person I knew who took the this quiz ended up with the same results!

And I still don’t see anyone communicating. 

Is this what our communication experience has come down to?  One liners?  This old fashioned girl is having a difficult time with this.  After a long day, if I’m going to get on the computer, I want to COMMUNICATE with someone, not get an inbox full of one liners.  In a sense, this is what is happening with Facebook.  Twitter, on the other hand, only allows you to post one liners.   If you are going out to walk the dog or just had dinner, who in the heck cares?  I would rather get a phone call from that same person while he is walking the dog.  Isn’t that what they made cell phones for anyhow?

Instead, I see people using their cell phones—their new, expensive iPhones—for downloading Twitter and Facebook lines.  I also see people who are addicted to being on these two sites—honestly, I can log in day or night and will see the same people with their little green dot showing they are currently, actively online.  Don’t they have anything else that they need to get done?  Like life?

I know I’m stepping on toes here, but with the invention of all these new technologies, I see less communication going on than ever before.  There are couples who come home and don’t say a word to each other.  Yet, they’ll log on and chat with all of their friends—and inevitably tell one of them that their marriage is not the same, their spouse doesn’t understand them, and they conveniently look for romance—online.   There are people who get on Facebook in order to allow old friends to find them.  So, I ask, what happens when they find you?  I know people on this site who have over 300 friends on their list.  How on earth can you possibly communicate with 300 friends?  Let me expand that.  How can you possibly have quality communication with over 300 friends at one time?

I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just me.  But it seems that less and less people are talking to each other.  Less and less people are doing things together or having family time together.  Don’t get me started on the fact that the average American family does not eat a meal together at the table.  Instead, they each have their respective places in the house where they sit comfortably.  One texts, one twitters, one gives a status and one….well, probably watches TV. 

Gone are the days when people wrote old fashioned letters and waited anxiously for the postal carrier to deliver them, carrying on with a social life during that wait time.  Gone are the days when friends came over after school and/or had a sleepover because they had so much to say to each other—and didn’t have a gadget to take the place of face to face conversation and giggles.  Gone are the days when a princess would wait by the phone for that prince to call one more time after their first date.  Instead, she now gets a tweet.

Come on, world.  Log off that program, get up off your duff and introduce yourself to your neighbor.  Stand up and bring back the social revolution!