"and now, you just have to go around checking all these different portals, just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting!"
Okay, who hasn't this happened to? Most people get up in the morning and the first thing they do is check their texts, their emails, their Facebook, their Twitter, their Instagram, their blog and maybe even their Pinterest. ALL BEFORE THEY GET OUT OF BED.
Seems a bit crazy right? But, my generation is addicted to technology.
All this communication we do online is called "Computer Mediated Communication" (CMC) and is part of a theory called Social Information Processing Theory.
A challenged was presented to me: avoid CMC for 48 hours. My phone became just a phone and in the middle of last week, I signed off from Social Media.
It didn't go too well.. In fact, I lasted around a day before I had to log back on.
At first it was fine. I didn't have to check Facebook every hour, I could avoid emails, I wasn't aimlessly browsing over every site.
But, after a while, it became too hard. I wanted/needed to communicate with a group from class for a project. My friends kept texting me to check something out on this or that website, I needed to get online to communicate with my teachers. I became panicked!
The only relationship that I didn't have problems communicating with was my Dad. Call him old-fashioned, but he would rather talk on the phone then text. He's maybe the only person I communicate with consistently without the use of CMC.
But not all relationships function that way. Relational development differs in CMC vs F2F (Face-to-face communication).
Think of it as a sip vs. a gulp
When you communicate via CMC you get just a sip... a little view of a person. You don't absorb that much about them.
You get a gulp when you meet a person face-to-face. This gives you a bigger view of who they are. The differential is 4 to 1. Meaning it takes you 4x the sips (CMC) to get what a gulp would give you!
I think this help to explain part of the reason we use emoticons, exclamation points and lols or haha to the max! We want to become closer to that person and show more relational affinity and that can be a lot harder over CMC.
Being without CMC was a challenge to say the least. I couldn't go long without it, I am self-professed addicted to technology.
But this challenge also showed me that I don't need it as much as I thought. I should cultivate more relationships like how I communicate with my dad and stop counting on texts to communicate!
I need to be somewhere between a gulp and a sip, maybe a taste? mouthful? swallow?
CMC has created a faster, impersonal, more connective society. But, I don't think we all need it as much as we think.
I challenge you to sign off for a day, go hang out with friends and don't bring your phone, have dinner with your parents and don't check social media five times through one course. Become somewhat "old-fashioned". I'm going to make it my personal goal to do it more often!
In the meantime..."Call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me."
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