Is It Technology?

People don't seem to go visit anymore. When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, Sunday afternoons usually included either visiting family or friends at their house or having them visit at ours.

My mom would fix a big Sunday dinner and everyone would gather aroung the diningroom table. Or we'd go to my grandmother's for dinner. I remember how she loved watermelon and deserts. 

People didn't all have televisions and no one had smart phones. Our phones were big clunky black things, sometimes on a party line. I don't remember spending much time on the phone until I was a teenager. It was rather unusual for the phone to ring, actually.

There was always lots of chatting and laughter. Now when there are folks to dinner they can't seem to be separate from their phones. They aren't even talking on them. They are texting or playing games. I feel rather disrespected by it. There isn't as much chatting with everyone at the table and the laughter is less frequent.

And when was the last time you received a personal letter via the postal service? Email makes contacting much easier and quicker. But I miss the excitement of getting hand-written letters. It feels more personal than getting "mail" through a computer. When someone takes the time to write me a letter I feel really connected, personal, even special. 

I confess I seldom write letters anymore, only email. So I'm guilty of taking the easy way. Yet I do feel less connected.

And then there is social media, certainly not personal or private, even when people seem to forget that and put all kinds of personal information on it for anyone to see. It always bothers me when people go on social media and talk about their vacation while they are away, letting the world know that their home is uninhabited and ripe for theivery. I only talk about vacations when we are back home.

Yes, technology has changed the way we do a lot of things. Sometimes that's positive and sometimes not. But it is here to stay, so we need to use it to bring us closer together rather than apart. Drop a note or a card to someone in the mail and make their day. Turn off your phones when you are visiting/dining. And invite folks to Sunday dinner for some chatter and laughter. We can have both personal and private contact as well as technology.