Nothing can replace real connectivity
In the modern age, we seem to be losing the opportunity to connect with others, writes
WHEN phoning an organisation about an issue, I want to talk to a person.
OK, I know it’s the age of robotics and computers and machines that talk. I don’t care. I want to talk to a real person.
Being told by a robotic voice that the organisation is receiving an increased volume of calls and I’d be best going to their website just makes me even grumpier. Recently, when a voice told me to answer yes or no to its first question, my use of the word “no” was not understood. I had to repeat it three times. How hard is it? The word “no” has one syllable and only two letters. Finally, the voice comprehended my “no” and then proceeded to give me a litany of numbers to choose from, none of course which related to my query.
So, like Peter Finch as Howard Beale in the film Network, I could explode and say, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more!”.
But I think it might just be a generational thing. At my age, I think I’ll have to learn to take it. I just don’t want to. However, I could be emboldened by the thought that the film Network so resonated with the public that it was preserved in the US National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant”.
All right, I get it. Employing people must be more expensive than programming a robot and therefore talking to a person in a big organisation is becoming less likely. And, of course, it’s not just on the phone. Their “shopfront” branches are decreasing, making face-to-face contact less likely.
How many bank branches have closed recently? I bet more than have opened. Talking of betting, TABs in Hobart have disappeared from Claremont and Moonah and Argyle St.
Also, as mentioned in the Mercury (February 12), TasWater shopfronts in Moonah, Devonport and Launceston have closed. So, what’s my point? Time magazine once reported the Milken Institute Centre for the Future of Ageing listed cities as an important place for people to age.
Besides the availability of hospitals, doctors, gyms and the like, cities provide places where people can gather, such as libraries, theatres, gambling places and so on.
Here in both pre- and post-Covid times, people can connect sometimes even by just “bumping” into each other. Covid showed the importance of this as, during restrictions, places that were allowable included supermarkets and chemists and some hardware shops. Besides being places for essential supplies, they became places where people could talk to someone else and the personal connection was seen as therapeutic.
Shopfront branches closing can restrict relationships between those previously in front of the counter and those behind, even if all they knew was each other’s names.
The personal contact goes missing. Just as it does over the phone. So whether it is talking in person at a location or to a person in an organisation over the phone, the old saying about connectivity still holds true. Connection with people is like good health. Its value may not be appreciated until lost.