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I cannot imagine a life without modern technology and I am thankful for it. I have no romantic ideas about some glorified past where things were simpler and more wholesome for it. I don’t want to live in a world where the average life expectancy is 44 and indoor plumbing doesn’t exist and dental care means having all your teeth pulled without anaesthetic and getting wooden dentures.
I have no desire to live in an age before birth control and see 4 of my 10 children die in infancy while I toil endlessly and suffer under the weight of an ignorant and superstitious ideology.
(Of course there are more than a billion people across the globe still living like this, but that’s another column altogether.)
In most of our lives technology plays an important daily role. Just look at cellphones. I can still remember thinking: “Hah, this will never catch on! Who wants a phone that you can carry around with you? As if! Normal phones are bad enough.”
Good thing no one listens to me.
Anyway, with all new inventions come new problems. Suddenly people were answering phones in restaurants, lifts and meetings. (So rude!) Motorists began crashing into each other regularly because overnight everyone thought they were multitaskers.
And most importantly, non face-to-face communication could now happen instantly, so many new evils like drunken texting, angry tweeting and passive aggressive Facebooking started.
The worst of these, by a country mile, is the text/BBM/Whatsapp fight.
As much as I hate fighting and confrontation, I have become a fervent advocate for the real life showdown. Having a fight over text is a pointless thing to do.
Sometimes it's hard to pick up the tone in writing, especially when one writes short messages, so misunderstandings happen quickly and easily. In the days of yonder, when one had a disagreement with someone, one would take the time to write a letter, probably reread it a few times, go to the post office, send a missive and await a reply in a few weeks. During that time a lot of cooling off can happen.
Nowadays a short exchange on where to meet after work can quickly escalate into a fight purely because of hotheadedness and irritation.
And don’t even think you can solve an issue or apologise properly over text message. You’ll be sending and receiving nasty emoticons and sweary acronyms faster than you can type “bad idea”.
Am I right? Have you ever sorted out anything remotely emotional via messaging?
I have no desire to live in an age before birth control and see 4 of my 10 children die in infancy while I toil endlessly and suffer under the weight of an ignorant and superstitious ideology.
(Of course there are more than a billion people across the globe still living like this, but that’s another column altogether.)
In most of our lives technology plays an important daily role. Just look at cellphones. I can still remember thinking: “Hah, this will never catch on! Who wants a phone that you can carry around with you? As if! Normal phones are bad enough.”
Good thing no one listens to me.
Anyway, with all new inventions come new problems. Suddenly people were answering phones in restaurants, lifts and meetings. (So rude!) Motorists began crashing into each other regularly because overnight everyone thought they were multitaskers.
And most importantly, non face-to-face communication could now happen instantly, so many new evils like drunken texting, angry tweeting and passive aggressive Facebooking started.
The worst of these, by a country mile, is the text/BBM/Whatsapp fight.
As much as I hate fighting and confrontation, I have become a fervent advocate for the real life showdown. Having a fight over text is a pointless thing to do.
Sometimes it's hard to pick up the tone in writing, especially when one writes short messages, so misunderstandings happen quickly and easily. In the days of yonder, when one had a disagreement with someone, one would take the time to write a letter, probably reread it a few times, go to the post office, send a missive and await a reply in a few weeks. During that time a lot of cooling off can happen.
Nowadays a short exchange on where to meet after work can quickly escalate into a fight purely because of hotheadedness and irritation.
And don’t even think you can solve an issue or apologise properly over text message. You’ll be sending and receiving nasty emoticons and sweary acronyms faster than you can type “bad idea”.
Am I right? Have you ever sorted out anything remotely emotional via messaging?
