Electronic communications such as test messages, instant messages, email, and blogging have certainly niched their way into the collective psyche and consciousness of the modern world. It is not difficult to find someone, somewhere, at sometime tapping away at a keypad or keyboard. Click-click-click-click is the common sound of this relatively new form of communication.

Very convenient, efficient, and easy to squeeze into time frames that already represent squeezed time.

I often wonder about what is lost in the communication process as electronic discourse metastacizes further into the nooks and crannies of the numerous host cultures. "Old school" identifies the multi-dimensional nature of what I call tangible engagement and communication with another individual or group of individuals. Not only is there content, but nuance and inflection and body language and facial features. Much more comprehensive an act, that.

Electronic messaging and communication seem uni-dimensional. Content, and nothing more. I suppose the extremely talented writers may create other levels and dimensions to their words, but these people are few and far between. We seek their material out in libraries and bookstores, not typically on a screen-full-o-text-content.

As with most things, if an individual becomes fanatic and obsessive and increasingly limits tangible relationship, then that person will lose out on much of the color and quality of being. And perhaps that is the dance. Using the new technologies to advantage rather than becoming slave to them.

What role does electronic communication play in your life?

deorre