A paradox of the present day is that technology is drawing us closer and closer together while we seem to be growing further and further apart. Faxes, long-distance phone communication, digital cell phones, e-mail, AOL Instant Messenger, and much more are the products of the Information Age. And though much good has come from the facile manner in which we are able to communicate with each other, in another sense much bad has also resulted. In the place of communication between hearts and souls has come a superficial communication. We are tired out by all the information technology, awash in a sea of options which prevent us from even attempting to put our selves into our communication.
Dartmouth offers ample examples of this. Blitzmail, blitzmail, blitzmail. Our obsession with the damned thing is famed -- two years ago it found its way into a New York Times article. Certainly, it is an easy and efficient way to keep in touch, make appointments, and generally get our business done. But what do the Luddites have that we have lost? First, I suppose their sanity. The Luddite does not have to waste vast stretches of his time waiting for some freshman who has yet to learn the five minute rule to vacate the Hop computer. Secondly, the Luddite -- if not opposed to telephones -- might actually hear the voice of his friends once in awhile. And when receiving a call from a classmate he might not pause in the shock of the event. Finally, the Luddite might pick up the pen and paper and write a letter.
And I think this might be the greatest horror of e-mail. With e-mail the concept of the letter has been virtually lost. What reason is there to pick up a pen and exert the effort of writing a letter when a few types on the keyboard will keep the lifeline between friends pulsing? And there lies the paradox. E-mail and to a lesser extent the other forms of modern information technology keep people in close and constant touch with each other. But in the bytes of information sent back and forth there is hardly any room for the product of the heart. Words flashing across the screen simply don't mean as much as words written in even the poorest of handwriting. Through our turn to e-mail we might in some sense be telling each other how little we really value each other.
Words written on the page are the product of labor; and those words often arise from the very depths of the person to express the greatest of feelings, sentiments, and passions: anger, love, sadness, and joy. Even the same words written in an e-mail and scrawled on a piece of paper can be greatly different. "I love you" written in an e-mail lacks something that an "I love you" penned in that special someone's distinctive handwriting contains. Letters are also a test of our patience in a way that e-mails can never be. In some sense they are a mode through which we can sanctify time through the suffering of waiting to receive an answer or a reply.
Finally, our new means of communication has allowed us to acquire a new sort of dishonesty or at least ambiguity. Take the new sport of e-mail courting. E-mails are just ambiguous enough so that if an invitation is turned down a young man can save face by saying, "I only meant it as a friends." Or there is the ambiguity inherent in reading e-mails. Things can be misread and misinterpreted in a way in which face to face communication or even letters do not allow.
So what's the moral of the whole story? I doubt very much that I am going to change. But maybe, just maybe next time I am standing at the Hop waiting for the blitz computer I'll step out of line and pick up a phone; or even better yet, I'll go find someone and talk to her face to face.
