Face to Face | Teen Ink

Face to Face

April 30, 2012
By schan GOLD, Taipei, Other
schan GOLD, Taipei, Other
17 articles 0 photos 8 comments

Favorite Quote:
“Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.”
-Michel de Montaigne


Nowadays, society and communication, at least on an authentic level, have completely deteriorated. Sure, the introduction of the internet has given people a new way to talk to each other, via Email, chat, etc. but in my opinion, it's destroying something very important.
The voice of a person can transcend countless things to someone else. Their age, gender, emotion, or even their mood. Through electronic devices, this is lost. Seeing someone's face during a conversation holds infinite impact to our understanding of what they're saying. But on an glowing electronic screen, it means very little. Too often are these emotions lost in the words of an email, facebook wall post, etc.

You can talk to someone on chat, where you have complete control. What you want to see, what you want to do, or even what you want to say. The fact that it's recorded makes it all the more meaningless, since you don't need to put in the extra effort to remember the words. All you have to do is look at the chat history.

Conversations have become small little boxes, which sometimes are only used for productive and manipulative purposes.

"wats hw?"
"can you give me the file?"
"are we going to have a quiz?"

You can only reply with a small "yes" or "no," and the conversation ends with a despicable "gtg tnks bye!!!!!"

I only know realise the importance of face time. Personally, my long distant relationships with my friends has shown me that it's impossible to truly connect with someone online.

Furthermore, it takes courage to confront someone face to face. Whether you're asking someone a personal question, or calling them out on their behaviour, it should always be in person. It can be staggering, but at least it shows that you were brave enough to do so.
For example, asking someone to prom:
You try to find them alone, and when you do, you carefully plan out what you're going to say. Your heart will beat faster and faster, until you hear panicking thuds inside your chest. The distance from that person can seem like miles, and every step seems to take forever. Sweat could start formulating in your hand. But you take a deep breath, and you ask them, with a hopeful mindset of approval. Now that's what I call true bravery.
But if you just log onto your email account and casually type in,
"u wna go to prom wit me? lol." it really shows the cowardice of that person, and how much effort they're willing to put into asking you.

When people approach you to talk, they are taking the valuable time of day to come up to you and grace your presence with their friendly face. Only now do I realise how much I've taken them for granted.

You can sit on your arse, and press the keys of a computer for hours "talking" to someone. But you can never truly discover the REAL personality of someone like this. It's so easy in this age of technology to fall into the trap of cyber talk.


The author's comments:
I don't like what chat has done to some of my relationships.

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