On friendship (1)
Has the digital age and sheer laziness overtaken us all that we resort to having the internet govern our friendships?
While telephone conversations and the occasional text message keep friends together in this digital age, I would argue that a good number of people I know have lost the skill of composing a letter, or its modern day equivalent - an email.
An email or letter is essentially different from an IM conversation on MSN Messenger, because it is essentially the writer reaching out to another person thinking hard about how his/her message will be received by the other party. Composing a serious email to a friend may take at least 20 minutes and a lot of thought before the writing even begins. That is where it transcends an IM conversation which is akin to talking on the phone.
While IM has its merits in keeping people more connected, we have lost sight of the profundaties in friendship and how we interact with others. Communication, it it happens at all, has been reduced to mostly shallow banter.
If I had a dollar for everytime I received an email invitation requesting me to join some photo sharing service or another service akin to friendster, I would be very rich by now. Have we lost the human touch by giving in to these commercial internet entities that bank on our common need for friendship and understanding? Would joining 101 different websites make one more connected to others?