Way of the Future

Last night, I went out with my family... by that I mean my parents, sisters, their families... you get the picture... I thought it was just for our usual family get-together during the weekends, but it was actually to celebrate both my birthday as well as my niece's.

So, finally figuring out how to upload pics from my phone into my facebook, I started sending pictures of the food and the cake... as usual, friends started to comment... then I realized something weird... one of my nieces commented on the pics... only thing was, we were in the same house at the same time...

I've even heard stories about parents communicating with their kids through the facebook wall... all while they were sitting beside each other...

I seriously think technology is out of control... we are getting further and further away from normal human interaction. We have this false sense of connection by just 'adding' a friend on facebook... it used to be just for friends... now it has expanded to include your relatives...

I now have an excuse not to visit my relatives... when I do show up during the festive season, everybody knows about everything going on in my life anyway, so it even spares me the 'catching up' conversations...

I may be a bit old fashioned, but I really prefer to talk in person... yes, technology makes everything more convenient, but it's so impersonal... I like the whole human interaction thing... I want to spend 3 hours at a coffee shop, just talking... of course it's now regarded as a waste of time... if you 'chat online', you can get your banking done, write a blog, edit pictures, download songs and whatever else you do online at the same time... if you're at the coffee shop, you're just drinking coffee...

It's not to say coffee shops no longer have customers... you have a bunch of people who hang out there and use their laptops...

This lack of social interaction does have an impact on my creative juices... if you're not having conversations (and IMs do NOT count as conversation to me) then what could possibly inspire me? Am I supposed to write about how a contact IM'ed this really hilarious link that really made me LOL? I mean, really ROTFL... It was a good thing he caught me right before I was AFK... AFAICT, it was an original joke... I've seen some good ones but AINEC to this new one... I showed it to a friend and he asked me AYSOS? WTF!? So I told the guy to PFO...

Yeah... doesn't exactly sound like Pulitzer Prize winning stuff, does it?

We need to get out more... see more people... live life like we used to... in person... and we somehow must convince the younger Gen-Y folks to do the same... they are even more into this online interaction stuff... they were born into a world where online social networks already existed... this is now their world that we are living in... unfortunately, most people my age (and older) have a hard time relating to these people... not because we are not technologically savvy... but because they don't talk to you in person...

Do you know how frustrating it is to interview the fresh graduates nowadays... they don't know how to talk... I'm pretty sure if I put a laptop in front of them, and start to IM with them, I'll get better responses, though it will be in short form...

Unfortunately, if you ever say this to a Gen-Y kid, the most likely response will be PMYMHMMFSWGAD! (look it up, it's a real acronym...)