Modern Day Misery?

I came across an interesting article (albeit a little late since its inception), and it details some of the more thought-provoking aspects on how the digital/electronic revolution has altered the way society communication. A 'reverse evolution' perhaps? Reading through the article there are some points that the author describe which really struck a chord with me:

Besides, how many times have we spewed off some verbal insult in the heat of the moment, before we had time to consider? E-mail always gives you that time, right?

That's true, but what you lose in text vastly outweighs the gain.

Hell yeah, this I can totally relate to. Sometimes one like me, who really enjoys the fact the others enjoy my company, come across people who simply reject all attempts at a friendly exchange - so I come really close to exploding... BUT, thanks to e-mail/IM/SMS, I've been given "freeze" time to think about how I wanna structure my response, instead of just coming right out and ACTUALLY telling them how I feel. Now, something about that just feels not quite right.

The difference is of course that insults are just someone who hates me making a noise to indicate they hate me. It's them telling me how they feel. Criticism, on the other hand, is someone telling me something about myself that I myself didn't know.

This is probably the strongest point in the whole article, IMHO. Criticism, constructive or not, usually forces you to address and reflect on things that you are probably missing - a kind of blind spot in perception, in a way - and there are no better people to tell you that except your closest friends and family. In person. In your face.

You are hard-wired by evolution to need to do things for people. Everybody for the last five thousand years seemed to realize this and then we suddenly forgot it in the last few decades.

I remembered as I was growing up, I used to meet up with friends, or go downstairs with my brother to play games, cycle with friends, meet up with my buddies during lunch breaks in school to hang out, go to the gym, play sports etc. Now it's all like distant memories. And it's been like, what, four years that I've left Singapore for studies in the US? Man... I'm glad that I still have some contact with my family here (we share the same roof afterall) and more recently, introduced a very special gal in my life.

Well, I certainly look forward to meeting more people, and perhaps hide less behind my cloak of invisibility granted by e-mail, Y!M, MSN, ICQ, Skype (which isn't all too bad, since I've recently gotten my webcam to work on them). "Excuses, Excuses!"

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and call one of your family members, relatives or old friends out for a cup of coffee or maybe a game of chess, ping pong or basketball. Y'all deserve some time out in the sun and catch up! I know I certainly do need my UV exposure, ever since observing my two-toned limbs in some of my recent photos.