Can We Talk?

The situation of being in the company of other people is becoming more strange and unfamiliar in this 21st century of advanced technology, fears and general social apathy. I truly believe our interpersonal relationship and communication skills are being less developed.

Let me define what most agree to be interpersonal relationship and communication skills. The first thing that comes to mind is one's ability and interest to listen to others. The ability to grasp the 'feeling' being expressed. Then there is the teamwork skill required to embrace a cause. A healthy  and a thriving society requires individuals, at times to sacrifice self for the group. The skills of responsibility and dependability are intertwined but are traits, which satisfy expectations essential for the good of the order in every society. Leadership skills motivate the masses to be in a common agreement while skills of flexibility and patience go hand-in-hand and aids in the necessity of a society to understand the importance to feel and express empathy. These aforementioned traits are not a gift at birth but can only be developed as one interacts with others.

So, what's the problem? Well, the problem is withdrawal. As a society, we are engaging less and less and consequently we are not placing ourselves in interaction developmental situations. We have become prisoners of  reclusiveness due to our fascination with and the convenience found in technology along with our fears of real and perceived dangers. This results in the crippling of interpersonal communication skills and naturally leads to relationship apathy, misunderstanding and intolerance.

We use our computer technology to order online consumable goods; everything from groceries, clothing, appliances to a plethora of endless items. We seldom need to interact with another human being. The once found frustration having to 'self-serve' has become an accepted reality. Likewise, we do not expect to hear a 'real' person when seeking many needs via the telephone; we are prepared to listen carefully to the automation voices and respond touching the proper keys. As parents we feel fearful of the many dangers facing unchaperoned children, therefore unlike parents of yesterday who said, "Go play outside," parents today feel more comfortable with children inside! Inside where kids are not communicating or managing their interactive play with others and developing leadership and teamwork skills as those opportunities emerge.

Even as a baseball fan, I find myself now disenchanted with all the sabermetrics used to analyze the game. I guess I should take more advanced computer education classes as it pertains to the empirical analysis of baseball; thus I could take my computer to the game, enter the numbers as the game progresses and later when I return home, I can crunch those numbers to determine if I saw a good game or not!