Self-preservation in the digital era is a fascinating exercise in ego.
There is no question that text is the presently preferred method for communication. It is an excellent means for the transmission of information between parties. It’s readily available, boundless in terms of length and depth and widely accepted. It’s easy.
It also frequently lacks context and inflection. It’s supremely subject to interpretation and liable to provoke emotion without intent at any given moment. Yet we rely so heavily on it to help us form opinions about other humans. So much so that we make real-time decisions as to who is allowed in and out of our non-digital lives based solely on our interactions and subsequent opinions relating to these digital interactions.
It’s real heckin neat.
Or maybe it isn’t?
And that’s just the works of text communication. We won’t discuss the inherent catastrophic nature of social media.
In short, the internet is great and awful all at the same time. Not only can we order mason jars and schedule them to be delivered through the window of our self-starting automobile, but we can make real-time assumptions about another human being based solely on how we interpret the words they choose to type and send without ever fact-checking that persons genuine intent. We can just cut people loose from our lives when the words they select don’t fit our narrative because we probably met them in a digital space and, as such, can just abandon them there in a similar fashion.
We are an incredible flavor of meat, us humans. So rich in our evolved state that we have boiled our existence down to the information we get on a screen the size of our palm.
Maybe try calling…after all, we do still call them phones.