Technological Advances in Communication?

Have you noticed the many ways we are able to communicate when we are not face-to-face? We have letters, the phone, email, text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, and smoke signals. But, amazingly, even with all these forms of communication we still can manage to "miss" the message.

They did a study a few years ago in China to determine how efficient the signal fires were on the Great Wall. (I can't find the reference to the study at the moment, but there was a documentary on it on The History Channel.) They picked a point A and point B to determine which was faster-the telephone or the signal fires. Guess what won? The signal fires!

Let me give you a more modern example.

Subject F calls Subject M to issue an invitation. F gets M's voicemail immediately upon connecting. F leaves M a message about why she called and asks M to call back. 3 days go by and F receives an email from M informing F that M just checked voicemail messages and would like to accept invitation, if invitation wasn't for that day. (Which it wasn't.)

F then responds to email with more details about invitation. Knowing M, F then calls M's phone to talk in person, just in case M didn't check email. F once again gets M's voicemail. F leaves the following message: "M, I am leaving you a voicemail message letting you know that you need to check your email in the event that you check your voicemail before you check your email. Hope you have a great day."

After F hung up, F thought seriously for 5 minutes about just driving to M's house and duct taping a giant sign on M's garage door so that when M got home, M wouldn't miss the message. When F informed her best friend about this idea, F was told that this was a weird idea and the she should not do that. But, sighed F, at least M would get the message to check his email.

Oh well. We are supposed to be grateful for all these modern conveniences that supposedly make communication easier. F should have just talked to M when they saw each other on Sunday. But then that would require talking while making eye contact and that is just sooo difficult sometimes, especially since M is quite a bit taller than F. Baby steps. At least with voicemail, email, and smoke signals some communication is occurring. 'Cause let's face it, without them, F and M would probably never get past saying hello to each other every once in awhile.

Maybe next time F should simply just mail M a postcard. And then F could sit at home pondering how M would respond to that and what form of communication M would use. Maybe F should brush up on her Morse Code deciphering....or get an Enigma machine.