This month’s issue of Psychology Today features an article titled “Endangered Arts,” which examines the merits of cultural bygones and argues why we should resurrect them.
I am particularly prone to nostalgia, but one item in the article that stood out to me was the threatened status of meaningful conversation. This is something I’ve truly begun to lament.
The article points out something that is ever-present in today’s social settings: that many people lack the time and focus for the most basic human activities. Non-goal oriented conversation has become a luxury in an era where many people think nothing of checking their BlackBerry or iPhone over dinner. This attachment people have with their smartphone signals that the interlocutor isn’t valuable enough to warrant full attention.
“Face-to-face social interaction is hard. If we don’t go through a period where we’re forced to master the hideous process of learning how to talk with other people, we never will,” Stanford sociologist Clifford Nass says. Reading others’ faces and emotions is a key component of empathy, and digital communication often breeds confusion.
Open-ended, seemingly unimportant conversations are essential to building intimacy when entering and sustaining a friendship. They are also the means by which we learn, via other people, how the world works. It forces us to clarify our perspectives, and recall our experiences.
Another casualty of the growth of digital communication is the handwritten letter. Though, I rarely hand write any correspondence to my friends or family, besides annual Christmas cards, I find this art to be particularly charming.
A letter takes thought, time, and effort that email does not require. Etiquette expert Peggy Post insists that sometimes email feels intimate because of its immediacy. She also contends that it can be more spontaneous than a letter, and less intrusive than a phone call.
Letter writing fosters verbal fluency, and provides us a way to process our own experiences. Angry emails are sent without a second thought, but angry letters are often destroyed before they reach the mailbox. The sender usually realizes the feeling will be embarrassingly caustic by the time the letter arrives.
We are transitioning from an eloquent mode of correspondence to an ever more utilitarian one, according to technology journalist Nicholas Carr. But, do we value immediacy and spontaneity over the attenuated pleasure of anticipating a letter? Or the gravitas that comes with knowing our words won’t reach someone else for at least a week?
It is not lost on me that this very post, bemoaning the use of digital technology and how it has endangered the art of meaningful conversation and the handwritten letter, is being transmitted to all readers digitally. If you’d like to discuss further, please message me with your address, and I’ll write you a letter.
