"Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."

Charles Dickens

Uhm I just love this quote! It actually happens to be a signature on a friends email that I just noticed today, but I just agree with it so much. I am someone who has always loved being around kids and have volunteered as a youth leader for kids at church, and as most of you know, my sister Erika is constantly around teens. We have had conversations before about how the communication amongst teens these days is so different from when we were that age. Pagers were the in thing when I was in high school. Cell phones came out as being more popular when I graduated. Dial up Internet was the next best thing to have, and instant messaging became the newest hobby. My dad always would always kind of rain on this parade of new technology by saying things like, "they did it backwards, instant messaging should've came out first. There's a phone hanging on the wall that you can actually hear the others persons voice!" In some sense he was right, why the heck were we so impressed by instant messaging and email.....well I think convenience has a lot to do with it. Also we can communicate with people we don't know, which is always interesting, you can communicate with people who live really far away with no long distance charges, and we can hide behind the screen and wonder how the person on the other end is perceiving our conversation. Or vice versa....did he/she say that jokingly, or were they being serious?
I now see teens, even younger than teens, and adults constantly using text messaging. I'm right up there with them too! I just think that to a certain point it gets lame! How do people withstand a relationship through texting? It's so wimpy! Teens getting into relationships are not communicating face to face anymore, it's through an electronic device. It kind of scares me as to what the future holds for this generation and new marriages and even friendships. It's already starting now; when my friends get into arguments with their husbands, they wait for a text, and when they receive it, they continue back and forth throughout the day this way; avoiding at any cost having to physically listen to one another. Again, I've done it! Not often at all, but I have to admit that it was out of pure laziness to have to communicate the "real" way. I feel likethis just cannot be healthy, but what do I know! Maybe I'm being old fashioned. What I do know is there is nothing more brave and challenging than confrontation and communication face to face, and what Charles Dickens says is SO true...."Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."