Losing Our Ability To Communicate

THERE MIGHT BE A VERY good reason to be concerned about the future of face to face, oral-verbal spoken communication in America, and worldwide. Homo Sapiens might well be in danger of losing, by not using, our conversational capabilities. Conversation is an art, an art which at one time flourished all across the fruited plain. Ancient documents and pieces of history memorabilia seem to indicate that primitive Americans actually spoke to each other, intelligently. Particularly on the frontier, there was little else to do, no other way to communicate. So they learned how to do it, and did it the right way, listening to each other, taking turns talking. Now we of the twenty first century be forgetting how to have a conversation by standing, sitting, or reclining within a few feet of each other, and using the spoken word, taking turns speaking without interrupting or talking over each other, all the while continuously practicing the subtle art of deciding when to make eye contact. Are we texting and tweeting our way back towards barbarism? Many studies have been conducted indicating that yes, indeed our communications skills are diminishing, because they are being replaced by Twitter, Facebook, texting, and so forth, all manner of electronic gadgetry. This, as you might suspect, is particularly pronounced among the young, the younger, the less communicative. This is of interest to me because my personal experience tells me the same thing; it is more difficult than ever to have a rewarding, intelligent conversation with another living being. We no longer seem to regard interrupting as rude. Its dog eat dog, with the loudest, fastest voice holding the floor. No matter whom I talking to, if their cell phone rings while I am talking, they must take the call, now. If it rings while he or she is talking, the call can wait. We Americans love to speak, and love listening far less. We talk past each other, through each other, around each other, anything except TO each other. I am as guilty as anyone. We now consider it perfectly acceptable to suddenly change the subject without a moment's notice. That was once considered rude. But maybe conversation is like riding a bicycle; faster methods have been invented, but people still ride bikes. Plus, once you learn how to do it, you never forget how,...maybe.