SHCC WYSIWYG Article from March 2011

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This article was written by Don VanSyckel, the club president, as a part of "The President's Pen".  This article appeared in the March 2011 WYSIWYG newsletter.

Technology Marches On: Phones and Texting

by Don VanSyckel

Technology continues to march on. The hot area right now appears to be phones. Some people seem to do everything via their phone. I half expect a couple people I know to just sort of freeze up in place if their phone battery goes dead. Many of these people feel they are more connected. Possibly. I feel these people are so busy being connected observing other people's lives that they are not out there living their own life. It's sort of a voyeurism with consent.

All the useless texts, tweets, blogs, etcetera just produce a lot of digital trash out there in cyber space that have to be waded through to find valid useful information. I don't need 350 friends on my face book page to make me feel as though my life has value. As people's lives adopt all the electron interactions, the real people interactions go down. While I've never been called a people person, I would much rather interact with people than with a keyboard and monitor.

I do agree that having a form of asynchronous communication is good; such as email and texting that you can read and answer when you have time. This is great for many things that are more fact based than interaction based. Sending out a notice about a meeting is fact based. Sending out an email to have a conversation and waiting for a reply is better handled either live or with a phone call.

I am trying to convince you not to isolate or insulate themselves from the people in your life.

Life is meant to be lived, not tweeted.

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