This is Part Two in the exclusive online presentation of "Communications in the 21st Century" by Rev. Dr. Trey Kuhne, LMFT:
This week I would like to take a brief look at how our communication methods are viewed in society and who is benefiting from those methods, as I said last week that you may be surprised! Just a short few years ago, the telephone was our link to others other than face-to-face talking. Now the computer has quickly been skipped over to unique technologies with the cell phone: text messaging, picture taking, videos, and other applications to be used via the cell phone in conjunction with the needs of everday life. My wife uses an iPhone from Apple. She can use it to call me, she can text message or email her colleagues at work, she can use it as a GPS unit when we travel, as a nightlite in the dark, and even can use it as a mosquito repellant in the summer time (the iPhone emits a high pitch tone through the speaker that repels the insects).
Before the iPhone, the biggest hit in the cell phone market was something called the BlackBerry. This was a phone with a keyboard built-in that allowed one to more easily type email messages through one’s phone for work or personal use. So what has the cell phone contributed to society? Much more instantaneous and immediate connections. Cell phones can be given to children and adults to keep close on them so that others may have immediate contact at any given moment. I know many hard working individuals that basically live with their Blackberry on their hip and beside their night stand at home. This communication mechanism doesn’t necessarily permit healthy established boundaries and our dependency upon it has trumped other forms of natural communications. Pick just about anybody you know that carries an iPhone or Blackberry on them and you will find a person well aquainted with anxiety. Salespersons make contract exchanges via that small keyboard. Answers no longer take weeks or days for reply. Questions, answers, and exchanges take place literally within moments; and as I would like to suggest, to the toll of our health, stress, and emotional well-being
Who benefits from these communication tools? You might think it is you but you would be wrong. I personally do not think we benefit in the ways we think. It adds angst, stress, anxiety, and worry. I know a pastor who refuses to carry a cell phone. I wonder why? I knew a salesperson who refused to make contract changes via emailing but preferred to be voice-to-voice if not face-to-face. The main benefactors, of course, are the cell phone manufacturers and the cell phone signal carriers. And their reward is so high that they are willing to keep the advancement of even more technology, despite how we use their technology and despite the effects those tools have on how we communicate as a society.
I am not trying to poo-poo cell phones or their use. Much of society has placed an almost irreplaceable dependency upon cell phones. I use one and I am not saying they are bad or wrong. But we have allowed ourselves to be engulfed by these limited forms of communication and have given in to their message that texting, emailing, and electronic media can fully replace every other natural form of connection. Don’t be fooled my friends. Zero’s and one’s can never replace the human soul. Anything digital is only a form of what it is copying and is never a replacement of the copy.
Parents, I encourage you this month to re-evaluate your need to have each child in your home own a cell phone with text-messaging. Go back to other forms of communication with your children. Look them in their eyes and hold them with your arms and tell them that you love them. Don’t just text them your love. Employees with iPhones and Blackberry’s, I encourage you to resist detailed communications via texting and take the time and effort to actually make the phone call and speak voice-to-voice. Though unconventional as it may seem in the 21st century, we need to get back to being good communicators representing ourselves more fully. We need to take the time to connect with others where such effort is rewarded by connection.
I am sure some of my thoughts are controversial and I welcome disagreement but consider the challenge. Analyze what you say and how you say it and make sure that what you say directly relates to how you say it.
Grace and Peace,
Dr. Trey Kuhne
Dr. Trey Kuhne is a pastoral counselor and licensed marriage and family therapist with Pathways Pastoral Counseling located at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, 400 Dupre Drive, Spartanburg, SC 29307. He specializes in working with individuals, couples and families. Call (864) 542-3019 for an appointment. He may be reach via email at: pathwayspc@aol.com.