The communication conundrum

CPPf recently penned a post in which he basically shat all over the thought of performing the simple act of twittering. I do not have similar issues with the twitter. I do not sink too much time into it and a brief look points me toward news and editorial opinions that I otherwise might have overlooked; I am also relieved to see in real-time that there are people on this planet as vehemently opposed to the GOP and their recent anti-women, anti-poor, anti-gay and anti-teacher and union tactics as I am. I could also just watch Rachel Maddow. But whatever.

While I don’t share CPP’s dislike of the twitterz, I am getting a little leery of my interaction with the interwebz and some real-time communication tools. I am starting to wonder if, for example, google chat is contributing to my life and time or if I’ve used it too readily with people. Gchat is a nice feature for quick conversations, ie, “Can you pick up the kids today? Start the roast?” blah-d blah-d blah. I have kept up with close friends by having random chats; I also use it to ask collaborators quick questions. I use it more for chatting with friends than with colleagues.

However. Today I accepted a chat from an olde boyfriend:  ’Hey, do you have any new music that I should look up?’ Fucking hilarious. Yes, dear XX that I basically thought I would marry since we dated on and off through high school and college and oops, right, I remember you snookered off with a 16 yr old while I was away and after I dumped your ass you in your remorse said you had thought that we’d grow old together and you would sleep on the couch while I puttered around in the garden…I have some great new bands to recommend. Also. Do you still like cilantro?

Isn’t there a reason we lose contact with certain people over the course of our lives? Do we really need to maintain or re-connect with *everyone* that we’ve been introduced to or random Jim that we sat next to in math our sophomore year? I readily trim people from Facebook who I don’t communicate with — what’s the point? Do they need to have evidence that I scratched my ass on Tuesday?

While I do not doubt that friendships can be made and/or maintained through the interwebz, I also believe non-friendships can be more easily cloaked: without the non-verbal cues people send, how are you to get that edgy feeling that maybe you should steer clear of so and so? Interpretation is lost. I have a general rule for friendships–if you wonder if a person is your friend, then by all means, they are not. It might be that these communication tools make it a little too easy to let those in that shouldn’t really be there.

While I suggested that CPP should just get over his twitter issue already, I cannot help but view some of these in silico interactions with suspicion and wonder, what benefit am I gaining from reconnecting with people from my past?

 

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