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Sometimes
I wonder how the human race survived before cell phones and the Internet.
Once in a while, I run into a person who doesn't have a mobile phone
or a business without a Web site. How do they expect me to contact them,
I wonder, mildly outraged. By carrier pigeon?
Advances in technology have indisputably made communication easier.
But have they made it better? The average American has only two close
friends today—a third fewer than people did 20 years ago, according
to a report recently published in the American Sociological Review (Miller
McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and Matthew Brashears, "Social Isolation
in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks Over Two Decades," June
2006). The same study revealed that one in four Americans has no confidants.
So communication is easier than ever, but we have fewer close friends
to contact. Why?
Ironically, the use of technology itself is partly to blame, according to Andrew Wolvin, professor of Communication at the University of Maryland. In an interview, Wolvin explained that mobile phones, instant messaging programs and e-mail take the visual components out of communication. He says that our minds tend to wander from conversations when we aren't visually focused.
"Everybody is on iPods, IM, computers—everything but face-to-face communication," he says. "But we are wired for being visual."
We love our cell phones and text messaging because they let us multitask during conversations, Wolvin says. But dividing our focus between the conversation and driving, typing and other tasks makes it harder for us to really listen. And the rapid-fire exchanges these devices allow have decreased our attention spans.
Good communication for good relationships
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