Texting, But Not Talking

THERE IS AN EPIDEMIC of people getting swindled online. Much of this involves older ladies, meeting men online, and getting taken to the cleaners, so to speak. A shockingly high proportion of widows looking to meet someone on the internet, and meeting the wrong person. This is shocking because you tend to associate older people with...well, wisdom and good decision making. But au contraire mon ami. The internet is such a great place to meet people that people are tempted to throw themselves into it, even though its dangerous. The fact that we now have the internet and all this high tech must be seen as a positive development, a wondrous advance. But one must use it with caution and wisdom. Human interaction on the internet woks best when it is used to supplement one's social life, rather than used to provide one's entire social life. Nothing can ever replace direct face to face contact. The fact that there is a trend in America to replace fact to face interaction with text messaging is a somewhat ominous sign that we place too little value on direct contact, and are too willing to hide behind indirect contact. An ominous sign of a lonely culture. People in America, many of them, seem to prefer texting to voice to voice or even face to face communication. Go figure. every month I get fewer and fewer phone calls, because I don't text, and have no real desire to. Its too expensive for me, and I am happy with a very cheap land phone alone. But everybody else texts, almost exclusively, and if you don't, you're left out of electronic society. People say to me: "I tried to text you!"...assuming that since they use it, so must everyone, so must I. I reply: "well, you just keep right on trying.."