Philosopher Mike Austin recently posted a blog entry about a  negative correlation between relationships and texting.

He writes:

…I find this trend and its impact on relationships, communication skills, and the mindset of texters troubling. We need face to face conversation as a regular part of our lives to flourish, I would assert. And while we can text and have this kind of time with others, it’s much more challenging when sending 35 texts per hour. Plus, as I’ve said before, if we spend all of our time texting our friends, what’s left to talk about when face to face?

I’d like to take this opportunity to expand upon my my relationship and tech entry, and see if I can pull a chair up to Dr. Austin’s discussion.

• With regard to the status of relationships, I think technology has made relationships intrinsically different than before.  Which is not to say that it is better now or was better then, rather that the difference makes it extremely difficult to compare the two methods of relating.

This is to assume that technology is not a “trend”, rather a constantly-developing political tool, kind of like the idea of “progress”.  (Both have basically unattainable distant goals.  There is no specific endgame.)

To venture a possible gross misread of Walter Benjamin, the nostalgia for the idea of face to face communication  may be partially due to the changing times, which disallow a form of “redemption” for the past.

Walter Benjamin's Illuminations, Ed. Hannah Arendt

Benjamin:

Reflection shows us that our image of happiness is thoroughly colored by the time to which the course of our own existence has assigned us.  The kind of happiness that could arouse envy in us exists only in the air we have breathed, among people we could have talked to, women who could have given themselves to us.

- Benjamin.  Illuminations, Ed by Hannah Arendt, Translated by Harry Zohn, Shocken Books, NY, p 253-4.  (Forgive my poor citation method.)

Austin:

In college, my friends and I used to hang out at coffee houses and the like and talk to each other face to face. But what is there to talk about when we’re giving each other real-time updates via our cell phones, Facebook, and so on?

To apply this to the above: we cannot have the same kind of nostalgia in a social world that derives so much from the medium of technology (texting).  Texting in particular has taken a very important role in modern communication, and very quickly.  It is understandable that people would be wary of game-changers like this: it seems like cheating in the game of life; a loophole that was not available only years before.

• This is not to say that face-to-face communication is dead. It is still, of course necessary in multiple arenas.  It would be hard for someone to go fully tech, and opt out of undiluted human interactivity.

While my goal here is not to say that technology has improved face-to-face communication, I’d like to reiterate that my conception of it as a tool.  Which, like any other, can be used or misused based upon the motivations of the user.

If you take examples like meetup.com, one might say that that kind of technology has led to broader real-life social circles.

Or, if you look at software like Skype, or any kind of webcam usage, you delve into the Cartesian wax ball issues.

But this has nothing really to do with texting, so I digress.

• It seems the issue here is not necessarily texting, but the lack of presence in other activities. Austin writes about the lack of attention paid by students to the campus’ natural beauty.  I would claim, however, that people in general — whether texting or not — do not give appropriate honor to the space around them.  This would be a historical (and perhaps moral) problem, not necessarily a technological one.

He also writes about the paucity of skilled writers, and the abundance of students who turn in papers “written by students in text lingo”.

Good writers are difficult to find!  Look at Kant: he was a great thinker, immortal thoughts.  But a terrible, wretched writer.

Or Socrates!  Everything he wrote down is complete rubbish.

It’s likewise true that attention spans have been severely reduced due to television and the internet.

“Text lingo” is impermissable in an academic papers (my personal view) but that is not the fault of technology: its the people who employ such informal language who are to blame.  Silly, silly students.

To conclude: I can see how it’s incredibly rude it is to have students texting in class, but….dont h8 teh tech, h8 wuteva drives users 2 abuse it.

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