But Grandpa, I Sent You a Text

By Elden Fowler

“But Grandpa, I sent you a text!” That is the standard answer I get when I talk with my grandchildren about maintaining contact when I complain that I don’t hear from them often enough.

From my grandson serving with the marines in Afghanistan, my granddaughter attending college in Utah, or my youngest two grandsons attending grammar school in Elk Grove, texting, Facebook and other social media sites are quickly replacing the personal contact that we of the older generations enjoyed with our friends and relatives. Texting has replaced the phone call.

When an IED blew the track off of his tank, my Afghanistan deployed grandson resorted to Facebook with a message and pictures to let the family know. The pictures show the damage, I sensed his concern, and my own worry level increased tenfold as a result. Facebook was his media of choice but God, how I wish I could have talked with him and heard his voice.

For those of us who grew up with the idea that a word processor was a pencil with an eraser on it and thought the replacement of the phone’s rotary dial with the keypad would be the last great communications advancement the world would ever know or need, the rapid rise of the social media sites has surprised us. They have taken the personal contact out of communications and replaced it with a sterile electronic world devoid of the warmth and tone of the human voice. We are being deprived of what I and my generation considered the normal human experience.

Not long ago, I played a trick on my 11 year old grandson. I let him believe I was in another city when I called him on my cell phone from another room in the house. He answered the phone, spoke briefly, and then said “Grandpa, can we text?” Puzzled, “I said sure, why not?” Peeking into the room, I watched as his fingers flew across the keyboard of his smart phone with the skill and rapidity of a court recorder while my thumb typed responses were accomplished with all the skill and dexterity of someone attempting to crack nuts. I soon realized that he was not only texting me, he was also texting three “friends.” My phone call had interrupted his texts.

Posting a picture, gathering “electronic friends” from around the corner or around the world, and multitasking conversations, this is his new reality. The keyboard and screen have taken center stage. The warmth of the human voice as we talk with friends and relatives has been relegated to the background to wait for a scene where those things are once again important.

I have come to believe that we have underestimated the value of face-to-face and phone conversations. Voice inflection and tone, body language, and facial expression have been the real means by which humans have conveyed their ideas and emotions for eons. While the new communication methods are great for communicating with friends and relatives in a globalized world, we should not let them become the sole source by which we communicate with those that are geographically close.

Although texting and the social media sites have greatly increased impersonal communication, they are not the only problem. The IPODs, the video games, the computer, the television, etc., they all limit or distract us from communicating with others. When we interact more with the software than another person in the same room, we have lost something. We have forgotten that people can also be important and interesting.

As a result, I believe the new generation is seriously lacking in communications skills. They are not only losing the ability to enjoy actual human interactions, they are quickly losing the ability to interpret the thoughts and words of others and to express themselves in verbal communications. Many do not want to communicate in person or, even worse, are afraid to.

As I look back at my younger years, I recall with fondness the times when my grandparents and aunts and uncles would be together and just sit and reminisce about their past and tell “family” stories. Now, at family gatherings, the football game is on TV, the desktop is on, several laptops are online, some have headsets on, and others stare at and manipulate phones as if they are panning for gold.

I would like to see some positive changes in this regard at our next family function. I’ll text them to discuss it.
Published April 3, 2013