A Randy Rant

My husband constantly surprises me with the thoughts that are constantly on his mind and his ability to get his point across with out all the "fluff" when expressing himself. Here's an email he sent to the family regarding his latest frustration (if you could even call it that). I love you honey!

Don’t ask. I just started typing and this is what came out:

Whatever happened to good old fashioned email?

In the days of text messaging, instant messaging, or even making a phone call, it seems people do not have thoughtful conversations via email any more. Seems silly to me really, as email offers something the other mediums are not capable of: thought. When you blast off a text message, or even an IM, more time is spent coming up with clever ways to leave off letters in order to get the message sent as quickly as possible, as opposed to actually taking the time to write an intelligent response to a hopefully intelligent question.

Let us look at it in another light: The things that last the longest are the most important. So it would seem to follow that something that takes some time would also be more important than something that was allotted very little time. For example, if you asked a thought-out important question of someone, and they shrugged off giving you an answer, or gave you a half hearted answer; it would clearly show that your question was not important to them.

So, where am I going with this?

We can safely assume people are communicating with others just as often as they have in the past, but I dare say the quality of those conversations has gone downhill. People no longer use “time consuming” methods, such as email or snail mail, to have meaningful conversations. Instead, people are communicating more frequently, just with less thought.

Are frequent short communications bad?

By themselves: I would say ‘no,’ the convenience factor is amazing! Not all quick communications are bad. For example: “Honey, get eggs on the way home” should not take a 30 minute email to communicate to someone. On the other hand, if these little interactions are the majority of your communication with that someone, then maybe a little more thought and effort should be put into it.

Lrn2spl

My major beef with the “texting generation” is the constant use of shorthand. Please do not misunderstand, I like short and sweet, but ‘ya’ is pronounced ‘yuh’ and is short for ‘you’, ‘yeah’ is slang for yes. ‘Ya’ is never ‘yes.’ I also honestly wonder how many seniors in high school (and even most college students) are incapable of spelling ‘tomorrow.’ They would probably be shocked to learn that ‘2’ is exclusively a number, IT IS NEVER A LETTER!

Am I alone here?

Feedback is always welcome. Just make sure to put some thought into it. J

~Randy