Communication

It is almost too much of a good thing these days. When I was young and living overseas, the only practical mode of communciation was by letter. Telephone calls were saved for emergencies and bad news. When I was stranded alone in the Miami airport for three days at the age of 13, my parents were reduced to calling Braniff pilots for insider information on flights and passenger manifests. These days it would be infinitely easier to access flight information via the internet and probably impossible to find out if a minor child was aboard any of those planes. Of course, losing a minor child for three days is probably unthinkable for the airlines now, no matter how tall she is. Times change.

Anyway, back in the day (other than for emergency situations), one had time to reflect, to choose one's words, to limit the message to a narrow audience. Today the communicative landscape has changed so dramatically that we are drowning in words and pictures. Don't get me wrong: I am very happy that I can call my daughter in El Salvador and my son in Minneapolis and not think twice about either call. I can email them, and the rest of the family, at multiple email addresses, layered one on top of the other to escape the spam bandits. I can, as one connection who I have never met put it, "passively spy on my friends" (as well as their friends, to some extent) through Facebook. I have connected with high school classmates, with the interesting person I met on a flight to Madrid in 2003, with my children's friends, and with my peers and relatives. Never mind blogging, IM, Gmail Chat, and telephone texting and email interface--who has the time--and the manual dexterity--to keep up with that? Oh, and did I mention that all three phones in the immediate household work, until they run out of batteries?

This week I accidentally spilled news on Facebook, and my daughter emailed more news that prompted my son to leave the following status on Facebook: "Chris--Oh you didn't know?" I think really, the status should read "you didn't know immediately?"

Again, don't get me wrong. I love communication and there are individuals out there who will attest to that. But I think we are losing the subtlety, the exclusiveness and the individual tenor of our communications. We can stay in touch with everyone within three degrees of separation but we are becoming more generic in order to do it.

Here is the last bastion of individual and idiosyncratic communication. I am looking at a note, in handwriting, on the desk. It says:

The roots of love
What becomes of the broken hearted
Dr. Vu Tues 4pm??

What can I say? Excuse me, while I check my email and Facebook for recent updates.