The dying art of conversation

Face2face--Letters--Telephone--Emails--Chats--Scraps--Status Updates--Tweets--?

As time has passed by we have seen a lot of development around us. The above line is best example of the chronology of development that has been witnessed by us. From the era when writing letters were the most convenient form of communication we moved to the invention of telephones which changed the world drastically. By telephone we were able to contact and communicate with any person living anywhere in the world. However if we thought at that moment that telephone was the greatest invention that we had then what would have said about the internet?

The internet was again able to drastically affect our communication patterns. First came the email. This gave us the feel of a letter but one which can reach a person instantly. It was faster in travelling that even a telephone. Further updates to the technology like chats and social networking really changed the way we communicate in a world today. It helped us to not only select with whom we communicate but also deselect people with whom we don't want to! While writing this down today there is only one thought in my mind. What will happen tomorrow? What would be the new form of communication that I would be using in my day to day life?

But the technological development not only changed how we communicate but also how "much" we communicate? Imagine the endless face to face communication we use to have to the status updates which are generally much much smaller in comparison. Or remember the length of the letter that we might have received atleast once in life, which surely ran for pages, to the 140 character tweets that we receive today. So the technology change is not only affecting the medium of our communication. It is also affecting the message of the communication. The message which has always been the centre of communication. The one that matters the most is being changed and twisted to support the medium that we use. What makes me worry is only one thought. Is this what we really wanted? Technology is always looked as something which makes our life easy and simple. But can we afford a simplicity which is affecting the subject. Is Simplicity elimination of complexity?

What I feel is with the message being changed is affecting our ability to communicate which results in lost of motivation. I still remember the endless talks I use to have with friends who were in USA telling them about what was happening in my life and knowing about theirs. Then we started chatting everyday and letting the other person know about all the details of our day to day life first hand. It felt like tremendous power. You know about something that happened with the other person on the very same day. As we knew all of the things about the people then what started happening was during telephone conversation we were stuck by the "Aur Kya?" syndrome, which I personally feel is the worst kind and the most dangerous syndrome. It is the syndrome when you don't have much to talk to the other person and have lost the motivation to talk. But you cannot hang up because you just cannot.

The power of twitter and other social media is to give us updates about the ones we care and also about the ones we don't instantly. But this is fueling more to the Aur Kya syndrome! I feel this is making our conversations very hollow as well as shallow! Conversations have been the most important form of entertainment that has made us survive for so many generations. This is what distinguishes a man from not only animals but also from other men. What we have not realized is that over years all these developments have acted like slow poison. No doubt it has helped us in many forms but the end results if we see is not something that we ever wanted!