Shame on us! Shame on what an inept, uncommunicative culture we have become. I recognized the sad turn of events on my way to a recent Minnesota Twins game (last of the year last year). I was taking the train from Big Lake to Target Field. I engaged in what I thought was a friendly conversation (including such provoking questions as “Where are you from?” and “What do you do?”). It was evident that said North Star Link brethren were way too busy texting, “liking” and ignoring a chance to communicate. You may have forgotten about an era when we did not have all the gizmos that kept us from the inevitable . . . .doing a thing called mouth-to-ear. For lack of a better term, let’s call it “talking.”
I would like to say this unfortunate state of affairs does not lend itself to my personal family. I would but I can’t. I am visited on a regular basis by my children and grandchildren. In some cases, even the respective husbands (by obligatory commission) drag themselves into this unfortunate lack of communicative dialogue. And so, the last time we gathered, we sat and while I waited for such comments as “Gee, I had a really good (or bad) week this week. Here’s what happened,” what happened didn’t happen because they were way too busy texting, facing or playing games on their iPads, iPods or whatever. I must be very boring company. What happened was an admission to the fact that, in the words of an old song, “We just don’t talk anymore.” What happened was, as much as I love my kids, we have discarded talk because it requires thought.
Now let’s take this one step further. I am told certain school districts require students to buy, rent or have laptops for educational purposes. This obligatory requirement is for such things as English, math and whatever. Forgive me for being so timeworn but I can remember the day I was required to have a dictionary as part of my learning tools and I had to provide my proof of scholastic knowledge orally.
We have, of course, libraries. But I defy you to ask any schoolchild ages 5 through 18 what the Dewey Decimal System is and how it can be used. God forbid in this age of modern teaching methods we should require a student to take the time to search for answers to problems by using such antiquated things as reference books or such first-source garbage as Shakespearean plays. I guess my first encounter with one of my favorite novels – Call of the Wild – is now easily transmitted to the nearest Internet home venue. In short, the words “cover to cover” now imply “How long do you want to stare at this screen?”
So I ask you to look at the next student you see in any casual venue. Check and count how many of them have a book in their hands as opposed to how many have a cell phone, iPod or other electronic gizmo in their hands. If you are a gambling person, I’ll bet you books will finish dead last . . . and I’ll give odds. And then let’s go one further. Time out how long they talk to each other before their recourse is a little square light-up escape pad.
There was a time when we could (in communicative fashion) spend an hour – as opposed to a minute – relating our feelings, our concerns, our fears, our joys and more without having to resort to a small handheld device to keep us from being totally bored with a thing called “talk.”
