How have our communication habits changed over the years? For centuries the norm was drums and smoke signals, but when the wind blew and blew the smoke away, you had to call in a professional smoke-sender, just as we seek a specialist if we’re sick. For longer distances we just got bigger drums and then AT&T stepped in and we had to purchase the drums with ones that didn’t travel as far but it was part of the package bundle. As a result, prior to streaming, we purchased our faves but sometimes had to add the Sewing Channel, the Non-GMO Kitty Litter Channel and the Arthropods are our Friends Channel.
For the older generation, if you lived in the big city, your mother would open the window and shout your name up and down the street hoping you would hear her and come home for supper.
When one mother heard another calling for their kids, she would also yell their names just like drum signals. That was a primitive but effective form of child rearing. The entire neighborhood would know when you had to go home for supper. Sometimes when a mother would start yelling, various other children would start for home knowing they’d be next.
This was the start of the mother to mother to mother alliance because when a friendly mother would hear the shout, she would also shout that child’s name out her window. The third mother would also shout the same name and you would then have a child calling radius (CCR) of about half a mile. Kids could not deny the reality. They had to come home for supper. If they didn’t the mothers could utilize their motherly rights to admonish neighbor’s kids. It worked well.
Facebook has now supplanted the window shouting with all kinds of personal and political BS any time of the day or night. If your mother used Facebook to call you home for supper, the entire world would know instead of merely the immediate neighborhood. People all over the world will know that you’re late for supper. Remember to un-click the Blab to everyone in the world as your life is revealed on-line icon.
By the way, do you check your Facebook page more often than you swallow?
Is there an unspoken competition among your Facebook friends to see who can accumulate the most friends? (Hint: NO ONE has a thousand or more friends)
Do you feel the need to ‘text back’, answer a Facebook comment or ‘tag’ someone in a picture immediately after receipt? Does the fact that you have just made the first comment on a friend’s posting make you feel good?
If you have answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you may be over-communicated.
This age of un-social media has us on a yoyo. We respond to its stimuli like a dog who knows they’re going to get a treat. Even at dinner, do you suddenly look up from your IPad to notice everyone looking in their lap? Is eye contact becoming extinct?
Is this how we connect to people? Or un-connect? In the past we had to tell people to their face that we didn’t like them, now it’s different. We can Un-Friend them. The guilty part of that is when you accidentally see them in a social situation. How awkward!
Here’s a startling statistic, there are more Americans on Facebook than actually live here. The remaining 278 people speak to their friends live.
Twitter gives us the opportunity to let others know what we do and where we go at any time, instantly. Since you’re the most important person in the world, why not let the world know what turns you on. It’s all about the likes and the emojis.
It’s a throwback to Ancient Egypt when the Pharaohs knew they were the center of the universe and the world revolved around them. If they had cell phones in ancient Egypt, we would have seen emojis on the walls of the pyramids and not just egrets and queens sitting in chairs. It’s important to tweet when you’re in line at the grocery store and let friends and family know there’s a BOGO on Non-GMO cheddar popcorn.
Do you feel annoyed when LinkdIn reminds you that you haven’t responded to a request? You haven’t responded because you don’t want to be associated with this person and don’t know how to let them go. It’s not the annoying little brother who won’t let you alone, it’s the intrusive Big Brother that won’t stop. You really want to tell that bully off, but how? Here’s the solution.
Join the ‘Un-Connected!’ No, don’t join. There are no dues, no friends and no meetings. No clicking, no tweeting, no diversions. Use your phone to make and receive phone calls. No texting!
The ‘Un-Generation’ is a quieter simpler time when you actually get mask to mask and say ‘Hello’.