Modern life is killing art of conversation
Tfirst murmurings of the protracted death of the spoken word were heard by these lugs in the early 1990s. The Herald had introduced computers that were as sophisticated as Rab C at a pub lock-in. They were so primitive that my randomly accessed memory was and is superior.
They did, however, have a function that was considered wonderfully modern back then. It was thus that one afternoon while pursuing my chief sub duties (think health and safety officer on Titanic, but busier) I saw a blinking light on my screen: message pending. I clicked and it was revealed in all its glory. It was from the night editor (think grand vizier of all he surveys, but more powerful). It read: “The Tory story will lead the front page.”
“Fair enough,” I said out loud. He was, after all, sitting just three feet from me.
It was an intimation that newsrooms were to become quieter. The clack of the keyboard replaced the claque of harassed journos ranting or screaming for resolution to their particular problem.
Communication has changed irrevocably. People don’t speak to each other much nowadays, certainly in a working environment. Even an old buffer like myself has mastered four ways of informing my superiors of my increasingly addled witterings: text, What’sapp, Twitter and good, old-fashioned email. And, yes, I know other options are available.
But the old way of just talking to someone on the phone or walking over to their desk has gone the way of the half crown. I plead guilty to almost full compliance in this modern practice of the worker as Trappist. I occasionally phone up my masters before realising I have committed a social faux pas on a par with dipping my tie into their soup, though this was once a regular occurrence when we had a canteen.
I also have been lured into the non-spoken world on a regular basis. There are moments of an evening when I realise I have typed the equivalent of a novella in exchanges with a mate over the merits or otherwise of the Manchester City possession game.
It is the sort of dialogue that once could have been concluded satisfactorily in a brief verbal duel. It now invites repetitive strain injury with the added complication of corrective text that makes my views even more incomprehensible.
The attractions of such communication are obvious. It’s cheap and easy, you say what you want briefly, and replies can be made whenever. The temptation, though. is to look at others and see how often they look at their phones in a snide, censorious fashion. I rarely do this. I am too busy looking at my phone.
The trend to communicate without speaking will, of course, increase when the impact of Covid is felt on office culture. There are good reasons for not travelling every day into a place of work: cost, time and impact on the environment.
But there is a compelling reason for offices to exist. It can be crudely summarised as the most obvious manifestation of the need for community.
There is an awful, depressing irony to much of social media. It can’t be blamed as it is a construct of modern manners but as Facebook. Twitter etc seek to build their self-styled communities then the genuine sense of community that binds human beings falls down cracks that resemble the Grand Canyon in their yawning size.
Increasingly, at least to this user, social media articulates the cry of the desperate. This is immediately followed by pleas from other users to “check in” on Jim or Joan. Increasingly, again at least to this user, there are photographs of people who have gone missing. There is the police number, the CCTV footage, the glimpse of a human being, usually smiling in defiance of the unspoken message of the tweet and in contrast to the feeling of apprehension that hangs from the post.
The desolation of individual lives and the injurious ripples these inflict on friends and family are laid bare in a prescribed limit of characters. Many such intimations are followed by the telephone numbers of those estimable organisations that seek to help people in those moments of chilling despair.
Those caught in the mire of depression or the dizzying, sickening spiral of anxiety can, however, find it difficult to talk. The depredations inflicted by the mind can be unspeakable. Life, too, can inflict wounds that are physically invisible but mentally powerful, eluding easy articulation.
The first rule, the most efficient first step from this enervating, life-sapping swamp is to talk to another human being. This connection can initially be made by text or email but it has to be developed by the power of two human beings communing through the glory of the spoken word.
We have a need to tell someone how we feel. We have the capacity to comfort and console by the simple but wonderful act of listening.
The silence of modern communication carries a cost. It distances us from the joy of actually interacting with another human being. We urge people to speak when they are suffering. Often we do this on Twitter or Facebook.
It is oddly life-enhancing to change this trend on an individual basis. In a brilliant twist, one can do this on the phone. You just hit a number and speak when someone answers.
The conversation can be trivial, even daft, and the subjects can be wearily banal. The purpose, though, is to share a life, however briefly. The effect can be oddly powerful, profoundly beneficial. It’s good to talk.
Modern communication carries a cost. It distances us from the joy of actually interacting with another human