Electronic addiction and a failure to communicate

Today we address a topic which could be approached from so many viewpoints. A simple look at the title of this column might seem like the expression of a paradox or a great inconsistency. The very consideration of the modern advances in electronics and the contribution to the ability to communicate appears quite apparent to most.

Communication and the ability to communicate accurately are fundamental to the happiness and contentment of families, businesses, churches, schools and governments. The warden in the Paul Newman movie “Cool Hand Luke” used an expression at every instance of deviation from set rules and the straying from the norm by prisoners. The warden would address the group and say in emphatic terms, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” That failure was a problem in the prison camp and it has often presented itself in every facet of life.

Several recent presentations on television and in the print media have accurately presented a severe problem among people and families in society. “The failure to communicate is not only by reason of inaccuracies; more often than not it is the absence of an effort to interact with those close to each other.

Let me digress for a moment and note fine and worthy articles have been recently presented by Dr. John Bledsoe in this paper and magazines on the subject of addiction. Dr. Bledsoe’s articles were primarily concerned with the substance addiction so prevalent in society and the toll that addiction is taking on the quality of life by those involved. I understand addiction and am familiar with the problem. The Bledsoe articles were the most informative material I have read. It would be more than worth the time of parents, teachers and young people to access these articles and lines for our children. All this represented progress in the ability to communicate ( maybe). I remember well the first wireless phone I ever saw. Late in the 1980s or early 1990s during the latter moments of tutorial session in the library at Calhoun High, a student, Elizabeth Dailey pulled a white monstrous phone from her pocketbook and called her dad, Joel Dailey, to tell him to come and get her. The cordless phone had already astonished an older generation ( of which I was one) by allowing people to walk all over the house while caring on a conversation.

I have strayed far in bringing us to the modern age of cell- phones and smart phones. There is no doubt that what I hear and observe is nigh unto impossible – still we do so much. Just think, I can get my great- grandchildren of way up in Nashville on the phone and with the feature of Facetime we can talk and see each other in real time -- One word: Impossible, but true.

Let’s talk about the failure to communicate. Each person in most homes have their own phone. The common scene is that of three or four people in a room, at a restaurant or in a gathering, all texting, talking to someone away while completely oblivious that someone in the room with them is trying to tell or ask them something. As the warden said “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Over five years ago, more detailed attention was given to this subject in one of my columns. It was intended to modify and append that column. It was more definitive in what I really wanted to say. Today, I am simply going to emphasize that the richness of family interaction is being taken from us by the modern electronics of today. The column of several years ago will be offered soon as my “spirit is moved within me” as I see an abuse of what could and should be a great contribution to a quality of life.