by JZ Murdock

Created on: May 15, 2008

The Quality of a "Teching"

How the times are a changing....

Overhead the other day of a young girl to an older friend:

"Oh? You still use that slow, old fashioned "snail" email, rather than simply "texting" someone?"

Sigh...."snail" EMAIL!?

And so it goes. Nothing stays the same. Does it? Technology moves on faster than you can keep up with it. And society moves right along in its wake.

In mentioning the above conversation recently to someone, it led inevitably to the question: is the quality of communications greater with enhanced connectivity, or is it simply more shallow?

The argument rages on. Some feel that with the increased degree of isolation in our environment, people are becoming less people oriented and more technology or "tech" oriented.

"We're simply losing touch with one another." That's the comment I hear most.

Still others say that actually, because of these increased communications capabilities we're now even more in touch with one another than ever before in the history of Humankind. In part, I think it depends on what cohort you are presenting this topic to. The younger, fourteen to twenty-four year olds; the twenty-five to forty year olds; or those yet more mature than that; they all have differing orientations. Obviously.

Think about it. Do YOU "tech" anyone? Do you "text" anyone for instance? Something that was for a while called "texting someone", could more aptly now be called "teching someone". After all, there are more than just text messages passing over the wireless and wired pathways that we are forever now swimming in.

You can of course email someone, or you can text them. But you can also now photo them, video them, audio (the old standard: voicemail). I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't yet other forms of information conveyance that I've yet to hear of. Wait until you hear that someone had "DNA'd" someone, that will be a turning point, I assure you.

Getting back to it, whenever "teching" someone, is it the numerical increase in communications that increases the quality of the interaction with that person; even as the shallowness of each individual communication decreases?

Perhaps there a theorem to be had here.

"As the numerical communications increase, so the quality of each individual communication decreases, proportionately."

Or conversely:

"As the quality of each individual communication decreases, the number of communications has to increase, proportionately."

I find that each communication I have, say a text message to my almost twenty

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