Lack Of Communication In An Information Rich World

In a world filled with media and opinions filling the smallest of voids we find ourselves distant from one another perhaps on the premise of lack of communication. Now, one will ponder and question how such could be when social websites such as the infamous Myspace.com receive such recognition and popularity.

We also live in a world-wide-web of blogs and video submission sites like Youtube.com. So how can I conceive the idea that we as a people suffer social demise by lack of communication. Simple, it is because of content. The content we share is not communication that promotes open-ended correspondence. The material shared is more informative and opinionated than debatable if even note worthy at all.

We are taking in the equivalent to "talking about the weather" and proceeding to indulge in such large amounts of useless information that we tire of everyday small talk. We care little about establishing relationships that offer no reward or blessing in the visible future. Social environments exist by choice rather than by chance and are usually more private than public.

Neighbors are no longer friends or even acquaintances and coworkers are more like life partners. We have more interaction with these coworkers than we do our families. Perhaps there is an argument to be had that this is because the amount of time spent with each, but I believe that it is more an issue of the quality of the time spent with each.

It is not unusual for coworkers to know about events that impact us negatively and the personal family left in the dark and not informed. We also choose to socialize with strangers from afar over the web more readily than a local stranger from our own hometowns. Again, perhaps debatable for many reasons.

Rather than provide hollow answers and reasoning for our social actions and etiquette let us ask ourselves why we choose to change the social elements and style when they were useful and sufficient from years past. Sure we have to adapt and possibly conform to the ever changing and newly introduced ways to communicate, but the way we interact should fundamentally remain the same.

I use to hear jokes from time to time at work and there were a few that relished much enjoyment daily from being comical, but I also took part in many conversations of interest and of varied topics. Compare this however to communication in email where I will find 80-90% of personal emails to be jokes/comical material or threads/chain letters.

This could quite possibly be an element to the dumbing down of American society. We miss out on the opportunities to engage in worthy communication where we walk away with more value than that of a moments laugh or smile.

Of course this is not a problem of new and for that reason we have much information to debate and speculate on. One of personal note for me being the rising population of socially inept individuals. I believe one can determine an impact has been made by the lack of communication and/or the quality of content exchanged among one another.

Is it amazing or ironical that we are declining both intellectually and socially in an information rich world? You decide.