An article in the Washington Post on December 15, 2009 is titled “We Can't see the Forest for the T-Mobiles”, and it really captures a view I have had for awhile. About 2-3 years ago, perhaps the summer of 2007, I was walking across a Best Buy parking lot, and with me there were four other people in the lot. None of seemed to know each other, and we were all going in different directions at different paces. I had Bluetooth ear piece in, but was not on a call (I actually rarely do that). All three others in the shared space we occupied were on cell phone calls, and nobody acknowledged or seemed interested in each other.
There is no particular reason for them to do so, other than an short "hello" or head nod. But nobody even seemed remotely interested in that. That was the day I saw a switch in our culture, to a point where our collaboration and communication would be with people in remote places, and we would know more about them than the person sitting next to us. I am not certain that is bad, but it is new, and anything new should at least be understood and evaluated. I have since seen 4-6 teen age girls sitting at a table in a restaurant, together but not talking. They were all on cell phones texting or talking with other people in other places. And today my nephew, who is home from college shared that one of his roommates spends all day on a video game console and cell phone with his girlfriend. He would not even hang up when she took a shower, or when he did. From what I collected from my nephew, his only conversation with his roommate occurred when the roommate’s girlfriend was in said shower, so he had a few minutes to chat.
That is striking. A person has a roommate they live with, trust their belongings to on some level, and share some common bonds. But he never talks to the roommate; instead he is in a constant dialog with someone hundreds of miles away.
I believe that the future global economy will be heavily dependent on such actions and skills. There is a strong likelihood that a person will collaborate with somebody around the world on their project more than they do with the person in the next cubicle.
But I also know that one of communication’s goals is influence; and I cannot help but believe that a person is more influential when they are present: physically and mentally, with the group that they need to collaborate with. I will have more thoughts on this in the future, but wanted to get that out now while it was fresh.
What about you - who do you communicate with and how? What trend are you seeing?