The world is changing – every day and every second. New technologies, new life rhythm… Everything has influenced and has changed people a lot. And now it is no doubt that we can’t back to our past, we need to accept new things, living with them in our new society. Mark Bauerlein focuses on a very important problem – people start to communicate by text messages and they loose their ability to feel the other person, to understand his (her) nonverbal signals. I would add the other important problem – people look into others’ eyes rare. And it is a big issue, as so many things you can understand just looking into somebody’s eyes. Moreover, there is one more problem - people now are always in a company of their phones or iPads. They loose their attention on other important things, and loneliness is one of them. Being alone is an important and very useful action – time to think about your life, time to understand yourself. We are always in a company now and our interlocutor is not around.
I believe these are big problems of new era. We need to support something, that a few years ago were typical and natural – physical interaction, talking, live meetings. It’s not very complicated to do, but it requires some attention and time. Let’s remember things that have always been important for us – holding somebody’s hand, looking into eyes or friendship’s hugs. Let’s do it and let’s try to give these gifts to our children – replace some computer games by outside walking and adventures, sell phones – by classmates’ meeting, Internet and Facebook – by some board games or simply communication.
I believe all these are important parts of people’s humanity and understanding. The Internet life is simpler, the real life – much more unexpected and unbelievably interesting. We just need to remember this.
Works Cited
Bauerlein M. Why Gen-Y Johnny Can't Read Nonverbal Cues, Wall Street Journal. August 28, …