Constant Communication

I read an article a few days ago that lamented the loss of handwriting. The author's position was that electronic communication has nearly eliminated the need for hand writing almost everything, and that the loss of such a tactile, personal expression was saddening.

I get that, but here's the positive spin. What we loose in personal expression, we make up for with immediacy. In some ways it's truly an either/or situation. Handwritten missives capture a part of ourselves that an email misses, but are physical objects that require hand delivery, slowing communication. Ultimately this feels like an issue of someone cleaving to a technology that has already been replaced many times over, from the typewriter to the word processor, to email and beyond. I'm sure some people lamented the loss of the calligraphic quality of handwriting you get with a quill and inkwell when ball point pens were created. But ball point pens were so much faster and more immediate. Eventually calligraphy was relegated to hobbyists. Handwriting now in many ways is akin to washing your clothes by hand in a stream behind your house.

Instant digital communication has opened all new ways to express yourself. Email is the obvious one, but you also have blogs like this one, where self-publishing is a reality. Then you have Facebook and MySpace, websites that allow you to keep in touch with friends and loved ones (and total strangers) and, through photos and quizzes and other little widgets, share parts of yourself with them in ways unheard of before. Twitter is the latest in this line of social media services. Tweat about yourself to an unlimited number of followers on a constant basis in 140 characters or less.

With immediacy, new ways of expressing yourself are born, new ways of injecting personality and individualism into communication. Avatars, virtual representations of ourselves in the digital world can accompany each communication we send. Images and video can be sent just as easily as text. Soon, I suspect, more and more customization, from font choice to formatting and color will be available easily in digital communication, such that eventually each email you receive will be as unique to its sender as a handwritten letter was in the past. They'll never be able to fully replace the handwritten word and it's ability to express meaning, but when you consider all the other benefits, it's a trade-off worth making.

I'll admit that volume doesn't guarantee quality. With all of the streams of communication available, a lot gets said that really doesn't need to be. But that isn't a bad thing. The more we can talk with each other, connect with other people and keep tabs on the people we love, the less isolated we feel. When it comes to communication, more is always better, even if the really good stuff is diluted by a lot more chatter.

It's like the shift from film to video cameras. Home movies shot on film, which was limited, expensive, and had to be developed, were limited to the important bits of our lives for short periods of time. Everything else was necessarily stripped away. With the advent of video, we could leave the camera running. Nothing was left off the tape. Instead of filming only the birthday candles being blown out and a few presents being opened, you now video tape the entire birthday party. A lot of that is unneccesary and uninteresting. But now it can't be forgotten. Instead of having to reduce your life to a few meaty moments, you can remember everything. A little extra clutter is worth it.