Conversation contraception

I'm getting a bit older nowadays and can remember a time before the internet! Yes,  shock horror there was a time when we had to use books to gain information on such exotic subjects as who was in what film and why the earth isn't flat!

But then came the web and we, as a society evolved,  we learned how to stop communicating socially,  taking ownership of our opinions,  being responsible for what we say and possibly the most important, we stopped communicating with each other.
Whoa,  wait a minute there Ste, we're communicating all the time now. 

Social media, email, instant messaging, blogs (duh), social interactions have never been more widespread! And I say to you all how is that socializing? The interaction is with bits and bytes, with a screen and a keyboard where if you don't like what you see then you can click and be gone.  Where your responsibility for your words ends when you press enter or send and your absolved through the simple expedient of closing the website/app/ window.  Once your opinion has been stated its gone, like some kind of verbal butterfly, and where it lands is none of your concern!

As a consequence there are more and more people making statements in the public arena that are available to millions,  and these statements take on a life of their own, we aren't holding ourselves accountable and we don't interact with each about the content of the statement. 

If you put it into a more face to face setting we're speaking at each other, and we don't discuss/argue/debate the content anymore.  Because it's remote we can be intractable in our views because there's no risk to us personally, emotionally or physically. Don't get me wrong I'm not advocating discussions that devolve into violence but rather that when your view is challenged you have a physical reaction,  your heart beat increases, fight or flight kicks in, you get warmer as blood pumps to your muscles. And all of this enables you to respond,  and the person that you're responding to can feel this,  they have a reaction,  its quite primal and is observable and anyone involved responds and adjusts to it and learns from it!

So after that rather negative diatribe how about something positive,  what am I advocating? For starters let's speak kind to each other,  practice the art of conversation where you physically respond to spoken and unspoken communication.

Start the conversation,  say what you think and enjoy the ride!