by Donna Pampalone

Created on: October 03, 2010

In this age of high tech communications, do people really listen to the spoken word anymore? With the popularity of emails, texting, faxing, instant messaging, answering machines, automated phone calls and social networking sites, are verbal communications being affected in a negative way because of all this modern, communication technology?

As we have progressed into such a technical age, are we beginning to lose the human touch? Is our human interacting, also known as, one on one, or face to face, becoming passe'? It is uncommon in these modern times to place a phone call and hear a live voice spoken. Customer service is now a series of prompts by pressing keys on our telephones to lead us to the prompt which will give us all the information we are seeking. Occasionally we press prompts that lead us to a representative who is there to help, but too often they have heavy foreign accents which often makes it difficult to communicate with ease.

Because of so many technical communication methods in our lives today, talking face to face has disappeared in many areas of our lives. There was a time when communication was done only through face to face encounters, telephone calls, or through someones own handwriting. Today, picking up the telephone to chat with a friend, dropping a handwritten note, or stopping in to visit a friend just to say hi, is becoming uncommon . Instead it is more common today for people to drop a quick email, or pop in on their social networking sites to say hi to a friend, it is possible now days to send a friend an ecard, you can even send a friend a hug via cyberspace. What on earth ever happened to the days of giving real hugs in person?

Not only is modern, communication technology affecting face to face communications of life, it is also effecting our listening skills,  The is nothing listen to or to hear to in an email, or on a social network page, nor is there anything to hear in our or instant messages. We do not have to listen to get the message that is given we just need to see it.

Listening is strongly linked to processing information in our brain, hearing facts spoken, or directions given for example will stimulate our brain to recall the information it has gathered from a verbal conversation. For example take a written text message with the same message spoken in a conversation, the text will contain abbreviated words, and letters to represent words, it is basically a new language for the new world of communication

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