This Sunday morning as I write this, it’s a crisp 38 degrees outside. Looking West from my living room window, I can see Autumn orange and yellow throughout the neighborhood below, trees exploding in color, spotlit from the sun’s eastern rays.
If you walked into the room right now, you’d be welcomed by a strong, sweet scent of espresso (I’m on my second cappuccino of the morning, you see). And, if you walked into the room right now, I would, of course, offer you one. If you accepted, you’d notice that this cappuccino is fuller in taste, and the foam thicker and sweeter than what you might be used to at the local Starbucks.
As you pulled it away from your lips, you might say, “Wow, that’s really good.” And we might start a conversation of how I learned the proper style while in Tuscany last year, and how I came to choose the semi-manual espresso machine. And when we stepped out on the balcony, we’d see our breath in the air as we continued talking, and the warm cups would feel good against our fingers. From there we’d talk about travels and food, ideas and dreams, friends and loved ones, what’s going on with work, and what’s annoying us about corporate pressure.
And then we might be silent. We’d hear noise from the street below: dogs, cars, people waiting at the bus stop. We’d be together in this silence, enjoying a warm drink together, nothing pressing to say or do. And it would be a good morning, indeed.
So what’s the point? Exactly. That’s the point. What annoys the hell out of me with connecting with social media is how limiting a connection it is. And what saddens me is how, more and more, this is what we are calling connection.
One blogger recently wrote, “...social networking sites can be far more than tools: they can be the space where life is experienced.” Even learning professionals wax poetic about the virtues of social media. There’s a line in The New Social learning where Tony Bingham and Marcia Connor write that (sharing several times a day through social media) is “like the Zen concept of mindfulness (p 44).” Having participated in mindfulness workshops and silent retreats, I can hardly disagree more. In a mindfulness retreat you might eat one almond at a time, tasting and feeling each bite. Online, we tend to shove five or six almonds down our throat as we type, hardly tasting them at all.
Don’t get me wrong. Social media tools have their purpose, and I enjoy many of their benefits. But in a world where our companies ask more and more of our time, despite technical efficiency; where pedestrians are getting hit by cars as they walk into a street, too absorbed in their “smart” phone to see or hear the approaching car; and where some people spend more time interacting with a computer screen than talking face-to-face (just observe a fairly typical scene at any local coffee house), something needs to give before it’s too late.
As a society, I think we’re getting dangerously out of balance. Your computer will not make you a nice warm coffee drink. And if it did, it certainly wouldn’t share a personal story with it, or offer sympathy when needed. “Reality” shows on TV are not reality. Texting is a pale, weak form of communicating. “Virtual” is just that. Connecting online is fine, but let’s not let it take the place of seeing our breath in the air as we share a warm drink and warmer conversation with a real-life human.
