Sharon's Blog

This whole e-connection stuff has gone crazy, in my opinion! Once upon a time, when it all started, about 10 or 12 years ago (I set up both my Hotmail and Yahoo accounts in 1997/98!!!) it was a great way to be able to keep in touch with remote friends and family without the cost of telephone calls – which were much, much more expensive then. They were also about the only programs around that you could do that with. And it was also only a personal thing.

Then, everybody jumped on the band-wagon, and before you know it there’s Skype, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and a host of others, as well as text messages – and the line between “personal” and “professional” has become so bloody blurred! People’s “private” lives are no longer private. There seems to be no distinction between what’s personal and what’s professional.

And the “personal” life becomes this porridge of mass-parallel-communication! Once upon a time, I could phone a friend for a 15 or 20 minute chat to catch up. Nowadays, that could turn into 30 or 40 minutes, and neither of us really focus on what the other is saying because other friends are also calling at the same time so our "chat" keeps being put on hold! Or we could meet up for coffee or lunch or something like that, and we'd laugh and talk about what's been happening in each other's lives. But nowadays, the mobile phones are on the table beside us, or close by, so we can continue those text message "conversations" at the same time!

Perhaps some will say that I’m “clinging to old-fashioned values”, but I’d describe it more as “preserving the art of human communication”.