Communication diseases

Click-Click-Click... Click-Click... Click-Click-Click...

Sound familiar?

All hours of the day and night I hear the sounds of students intensely clicking a secret message to a friend - it's the sound of the text message. Sadly, I used to be just like them. Recently however I have begun to realize that text messaging, IMing, e-mailing and facebooking are about the worst possible ways of communicating.

Technology is supposed to make life easier, help us to enjoy it more, and allow us to fully appreciate the opportunities around us. But has all this technology gone overboard? Have we become robot-like machines, just like our computers and cell phones, incapable of freely experiencing life?

In the business world people are forced to take vacations to obscure places just so they don't have to deal with work, to "get away from it all," but guess what?

Most vacation destinations are neatly equipped with convenient Internet terminals so that we can check our business or school e-mail, just to "confirm everything is going alright." Not that this matters to the real high-rollers, they have a Star Trek-looking device that is a phone, a computer, a notepad, a television and a newspaper.

The best vacation I ever had was camping in the Adirondacks with my buddies. There was no cell service, no computers, just four of us; a tent, some fishing rods and a campfire. It rained the whole time, yet with no one bothering us from "the real world" we were able to just enjoy nature, and conversation. These are the moments we forget in the hustle and bustle of daily life.

Though the technology for those suffering from work-a-holism isn't a huge problem and it is beneficial to employers and employees, its way to easy to get caught up in until is spirals out of control taking over our entire lives. And we wonder why everyone around us is stressed out.

Worse yet, millions of Americans have been duped into the trap of match.com and e-harmony success stories. Instead of meeting people and finding common interests, we read their love resume online.

It's a relationship, not a job. Matching interests on facebook isn't really going to get us anywhere, nor is having a computer-generated list of possible companions, that of all things a computer, (a box with a bunch of wires and motherboards or whatever) said were "matches."

Newsflash, you still have to go out with the person for that awkward first time, unless of course you plan on getting e-married and maybe making some e-love. But even after procreating the little e-kids, do you really know the person?

There is no way the e-love scene is actually easier, or more acceptable than just introducing yourself to cute girl who sits next to you in class, or to your buddies girlfriend's friend that came over for the Super Bowl.

Internet dating is just another vice to hold people from gaining confidence. With a few exceptions, text messaging isn't much better or more convenient, its just another way for people to hide behind insecurities. Until we can have the confidence to actually make the phone call, we're cheating ourselves.

After all, generations before us managed to find soul mates without the help of computers, and dating services. And consider this force-fed piece of information; divorce rates are at an all time high.

Now, where will we find ourselves in five years? Instead of calling or meeting for coffee, will we still be texting, sending IMs and writing on each other's walls?

Is it that we think our voices sound silly on the phone? Are we afraid that maybe we'll spill coffee down our shirt? Is there a chance that we'll have a booger in our nose?

Either way, sometime after the 100 texts, the 30 minute IM conversations at 3 a.m., and the 26 wall postings, we will have to face up to our insecurities and stop hiding behind our phones and inside our computers.

I guess like in everything else we should all start with baby steps. Try a walk, take the iPod plugs out, stop looking down, smile and say hi to the people you pass by everyday but never acknowledge. This might just be the perfect antidote to start the vaccine against these communication diseases caused by technology. Unless of course you're prepared to be rendered socially comatose with e-dating as your only hope for love.