I feel like the more ways that the internet finds ways for people to communicate, the more, generally speaking, impersonal communication becomes.
Catching up used to be something on the phone or in person, something that took a while. But now people are in surveillance of each other’s lives through facebook updates, instagram pictures, and tweets. They aren’t as personal as showing pictures from a trip in person, or calling a friend to let them know of their updates, or sending their friends post cards.
The ‘updates’ we get are less personal, they’re over for all the friends, but it’s not like getting a call from a friend with their news, to share and have a personal interaction. I know that as people move further away it becomes harder, and I know it’s hard because for me and my friends I am usually awake when they aren’t and visa versa. But I miss that.
I miss calling up someone, having an actual phone conversation, not a text conversation, or a facebook message. I miss that genuine personal communication.
While technology makes it easier to get in touch, I don’t know if it makes it more personal. I guess even these blogs are impersonal. They aren’t tailored to anyone, they aren’t like a phone call, they’re more or less monologues.
But they aren’t like insta-updates. These are my real, honest, in depth thoughts. The type of conversations that occur when the small talk is out of the way and when the deep connections begin to occur, when our inner thoughts are on display, for share, for interaction. Some of these blogs are like small talk, and some bypass the simple update, and try to communicate what my thoughts are made up of under the surface. In that sense, they make me feel like I’m not just updating people, they don’t even contain that much personal data about my life here now.
But, what happened to a good old phone conversation? Now for me, these are just a good old skype conversation, one that lasts for hours and makes me feel like no time has passed, the rekindling of an old fire that never ages, but gets stronger as the light and heat passes.