Communication, A Victim Of Progress?

One of my favorite movies of all time, Disney's "Tall Tale" presents a young boy from the American West in the early 1900's who's fascinated by the latest and greatest in modern technology. He encounters the legendary Pacos Bill and during a conversation with him he mentions the telegraph, and the eventual telephone being invented by "a man named Bell".

Pacos scoffs at the idea, exclaiming "It won't be no time at all a man can find any privacy!"

Fast forward to today. How private is your life? How much do you truly value YOUR privacy? Of course you value your identity, who's to argue? But I'm referring to real privacy. Can you keep a secret? Or do your emotions leak out through a text message, Twitter, Facebook, or heaven forbid, YouTube?

Over the past few decades, many strides have been made in the realm of innovation and technology, particularly in telecommunications. When you consider how old the earth is (several millenia), it is remarkable that the human race - in less than a century - went from candles and a horse n' buggy to space travel and BlackBerry's.

Yet, despite all of this rapid progression, one has to ask if there are any side-effects or drawbacks. I can think of a few, but before I drill down on one in particular, let me just say that overall, there is a reasonable argument to be made that people's values and principles (the very foundation upon which such progression sprang from) are crumbling... not due to the weight of new horizons, but rather because people are forgetting to keep up on the roots of pure civility and responsibility from whence came so much prosperity and progress.

In the past ten years (at least) we have seen an invasion of information and communication like the world has never seen. I guarantee that every single American knows at least one person who owns a mobile phone... My question is, in all sincerity - is this a good thing or a bad thing? Or... is it just a thing?

Here's my point. What has telecommunications done with our basic people skills? Have people come closer together? Really? Or have people just been "connected" more? Are we so overwhelmed with the constant barrage of information and comminications that we fail to see that quantity is not just taking over but steadily eroding the quality thereof?

Another point: How many of you have typed or keyed that familiar "LOL" when in fact you were NOT laughing? Probably the exact amount of people who text "LOL" are guilty (yes, guilty) of this. Sure, some of you may shrug this off and think it's no big deal, but the fact is that a lot of false emotions are packed into our text messages, emails, and social network posts that it's practically fair to question whether someone is really actually laughing out loud, or they just want to come off that way. Perhaps I am looking way too far into this, but I believe there is a big problem in not expressing true emotion "out loud" and instead settling for the LMAO's and hehe's of the digital world.

I don't think there is a secret solution to solving one's every communication challenge, but I do believe that a regular study and audit of oneself helps to strengthen confidence and therefore, to communicate effectively. After all, commincation has almost notthing to do with words, and everything to do with trust.