Communication A.D.D.

Chapter 1

Communication Babble

Let’s face it – the word ‘communication’ is thrown around more often than not these days and very rarely refers to its original definition.  Communication can be used in the context of technology, media, and transportation.  Communication majors in college are in great abundance.  They learn journalism and reporting and different aspects of media and processing information.  Communication has been taken to the level of almost being equivalent to or interchangeable with the word technology.  Telecommunication is a booming field for recent graduates looking to capitalize on the growing industry.  But what seems to get lost in the shuffle, what doesn’t receive as much airtime lately is the necessity to communicate with one another on a personal level.  Hand written notes have been replaced by emails, mailed invitations by electronic ones, phone calls by text messages, and meeting for coffee or tea with chatting online or checking in on a social media network.  It’s gotten so extreme lately that a stronghold of this nation is at risk of folding due to the overwhelming loss of revenue it’s incurred over the past decades with the onslaught of technology.  According to a 2012 article featured in the NY Times, the United States Postal Service reported an 11.6 billion dollar loss for their fiscal year.  The article does not blame technology directly for this loss but refers to the fact that their revenues are down causing them not to be able to uphold the requirements Congress set in motion for them to pay certain benefits for their employees.  But the bottom line is that the United States Postal Service is cutting jobs and doing away with certain services because quite frankly, people are simply not mailing letters anymore.  Paper has been replaced with the computer.  Don’t get me wrong; I subscribe to all of these things.  I have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts.  I love email and I text more often than I like to admit.  I have children, after all, so I need to keep up with the times in order to raise them effectively in this world.  However, the problem arises when these latest and greatest technological advances take the place of the original intent of interpersonal relationships.  We can’t have one without the other and what seems to be happening more often than not is the breakdown of communication despite the fact that we have so many ways to communicate!  Now that is irony at its best.  People are breaking up over text messages, finding out about other relationships via Facebook, and sharing and airing every mundane activity in their lives through Twitter.  And with this new fangled wave of communicating has come a sort of unhealthy boldness and empowerment that people are using to cyber bully and demean others.  It becomes increasingly easier to badmouth and ridicule and criticize others when there is anonymity involved or when it’s done behind a computer, phone, or handheld device’s screen.  We have, essentially, lost our ability to filter our thoughts and use our words carefully and meaningfully.  Rather, society has gotten to a place where nothing is off limits even if it means hurting or harming other people’s feelings, self-esteem and self-worth.  What does it matter anyway since most likely the one writing and spewing the negativity will never have to meet face to face with the recipient?  

It’s tragic and dangerous and just plain scary to see how far we’ve come.  What happened to looking each other in the eye and really talking?  What happened to sharing only things that ought to be shared?  What happened to keeping certain things sacred and private?  The lines of what is acceptable and what is not have definitely been blurred and it seems everyone is trying to navigate this new ocean of miscommunication with global positioning systems that are malfunctioning and misfiring leaving a wake of mangled up relationships in their path.  We are definitely dealing with communication babble of the best, or should I say worst, kind. It seems that with the brilliant potential to reach dozens, hundreds, thousands, and more of people with so many different modes of communication we really aren’t hearing one another at all.  We have become deaf in spite of all the chatter.  We are, essentially, at a loss for words.  How, then, do we stop this cycle of chaos when it comes to communication if we can’t even understand what is going wrong?   

Chapter 1

  New York Times www.nytimes.com Ron Nixon, August 9, 2012