Communication Today

In the days before telephones, people sent notes to each other.  The note usually had some kind salutation and some kind of polite sign-off. When they met in person, there was probably at least a handshake. And when they departed, they said goodbye which like so many languages had the word God in it. Good refers to God. Adios. Adieu, etc. Not that it matters to me. But it was just a polite expression. Letters written always had greetings and some form of well wishes. And then came the telephone and the tradition persisted to some degree: Hello? Good bye, Take care, see you soon and so on. There was ham radio with sign-ons and sign-offs. And then arose the digital age. E-mail still allows for such greetings and in fact I will still use some kind of greetings to friends, but treating it as a kind of informal letter writing communication. But now we have social media, where we have "friends, followers or following." There are rarely ever greetings. Just statements, contradictions, smart aleck retorts, smiley or weeping faces, emojis that are supposed to express among other things emotional feelings. There's a lot of one upmanship going on, so much so it seems like an endless competition. Yet these are our "friends."

We wonder or at least some wonder why the fabric of society is fraying. Whereas the digital age has done so much to move humanity, who could acquire such tools, forward by leaps and bounds, quantum leaps, so to speak. But at what cost? Civility? Politeness? True human social behavior? To my mind these small social conventions slowly disappearing are the equivalent to the kinds of social behavior, social animals require, grooming among primates is a good example. Without that kind of social behavior the clan (not Klan) or troop falls apart. Friends? Social adhesion? Now robotic behavior because a good portion of social media are robots and the humans can't tell the difference any more.