Speak.

I know I harp on my generation a lot in this blog. Just a little disclaimer: Generation, I do love you. I'm a part of you, despite my old soul, so I have no choice but to love you.

But, I think my generation has lost the art of communication.

Last week, one of my professors stressed the importance of communication in her last lecture. It struck me because people in general, but particularly people my age, don't know what it means to communicate. It has become this buzzword just like diversity or recession. They are words that we throw around in everyday language while still struggling to understand the principles that exist at the core of the words.

In an effort to prolong my procrasination last night, I browsed through a few blogs and realized people air a lot of their dirty laundry on blogs. They "speak" to people who have hurt them, misused them, and toyed with their emotions, not only through words on a blog, but also through just pictures and videos.

Why don't we talk anymore?

The convenience of Facebook, email, Twitter, texting, and a gazillion other things that meant absolutely nothing 4 or 5 years ago (well...maybe more like 8 yrs ago if we're talking abt texting) have caused many of us to stop using our words. Sure, I'm a fan of using technology to vent. I mean, it's what I do everyday on this thing. But, when it comes to deeper emotional matters, maybe we should speak. Thanking someone for a night of great sex (example I am using here, just an example I stumbled upon last night) or "telling" them not to only think of us as a one night stand via a blog are not real forms of communication. Because, way back in a little class called COMM107, I learned that a message goes from the sender to the INTENDED receiver. If your message is for one person, send it that person.

As much as mediated communication has helped our lives in the past decade or so, it has also destroyed our ability to feel and then take the next step and properly communicate those feelings. Words blur everything that they do not make clear and adding the element of technology only smokes the surface more.

Use your words.

Love freely,
tY