I used to talk on the phone for hours; now, I hate talking on the phone. When my phone rings, I defer to the caller-id and deduce whether or not to answer, based upon how I feel or moreover, what my mind can handle. I am busy. Always busy. Doing what, I cannot say at this moment, but I know I am too busy to stop and engage an unpredictable human, with an unpredictable demand for my attention. I enjoy predictability.
In that moment of deduction, I wrestle with the character on the other end. I consider our history together. I consider the person’s current state of affairs. I consider our last conversation. I think about how much I owe the person on the other end. I consider the possible weight of the exchange. In that moment, I compute: to answer or not to answer. Most often, I do not answer. My dad tells me I never answer my phone. I say yes, but I always answer your texts.
I have recently noticed a change in myself as well as society in general, particularly those of us who live digital lives. As a lover of language, I notice a drastic shift in how the varied strata within society use language. Those like myself and many of my generation (and younger) seem to enjoy typing as a form of communication, over speaking. We prefer reading, over listening. We seem to enjoy one-sided conversations that get posted somewhere digitally over those that require us to speak, then listen, then respond in real time. Real time is quite often too much pressure. Real time conversations require listening, and sometimes I don't want to do that. Listening is too demanding for me in my busy life, that needs not another emotional kick or unexpected complication. I compute, do not answer, then return the call when I am settled: which is sometimes a very long time later, and speaking with raw honesty, sometimes never. The more I rely on digital communication, the less I enjoy face-to-face and even ear-to-ear communication. I am unlearning what took me about thirty-five years of living to understand: I cannot know myself without the mirror others provide for me in real time, in real conversation, when under social pressure, and with the inability to “delete” what I just said. Revising in real time takes so much out of me.
The idea came to me in class last year. I teach high school kids. And to hold a student’s attention today is hard. I notice a trend. My students tell me they love my class, and as they say that I think, “Well why was it then so hard to keep your attention?” Now, I do not mean attention in the sense that I want to keep a student listening to some droning, ad nauseum lecture on the tenets of Nineteenth Century literature. Lecturing is dead in high schools. I can’t do it. My classes are heavily dependent upon seminar, and the seminars, which may soon become as defunct as phone conversations, usually connect to activities. They also depend upon students talking with each other. Getting students to talk with each other and getting students to listen to my directions to know how to do application activities is becoming more and more difficult. What I find is that at the point at which the students have to give up the process of listening, or at least pretending to do so, to talk through a problem I present them, a huge disconnect presents. When it's time for them to stop (feigning) listening, but rather listening to digest and apply to actual action, there is a disconnect. I do not mean anything complex. I mean the task of listening to two-step directions. I have to repeat directions over and over and over because students, even though they are looking directly at my face, and appear to hear the utterances coming from my mouth, are not listening to what I am saying. They appear not to process my words. It is easier for me to give them everything typed up on a strip of paper: which I quite often do. But where's the variety in delivery? Where's the need for my persona in the room?
Granted, some students take visual cues more readily. Some take verbal cues more readily. That is not what I mean. I mean I say, “Here are your directions.” I say them slowly. It does no good. I say them over and over, “one-page for two of you.” I say it five times. “You only need one.” It doesn’t make a difference. Many will not make the connection. I then draw a picture on the overhead, hold one page up in my hand; then draw a picture on the board of what I need them to do. At that moment all questions cease. My visual is more potent than my spoken word. The icon replaces the word. Do not get me wrong, in meetings, I always ask for a graphic organizer. Visuals also dominate my psyche; as do one-sided conversations. I blog, and say what I like without responses and without complication. How often do we get input from folks who disagree with us? There is no negotiation. I am my own society.
I assume that the students who tune out my words come across to me the same way I come across to my dad, who says, “I never answer my phone.” It’s too much work. They calculate how much they owe me within that exchange. We compute the cost of the exchange.
As we consider the consequences of the current state of social communication and the growing gap between "digitals" and the rest of society who refuse to email, blog, facebook, etc., we should also consider the consequences for interpersonal relationships. How much change and isolation can we stand? How many one-sided exchanges can our politics and democracy stand? As we consider these questions, how about also considering what to do with that awkward interrupt:
"You go ahead."
"No, you go ahead, I'm listening."
