Mobile phones and social skills!

The degeneration of social skill, with every Regeneration of the mobile phone.

J.R. Hartley

Today my shiny new blackberry arrived, and quite frankly i did not want it, i have no need to be in constant touch with everyone and everything, and if i ever so desperately need to make a telephone call i shall carry a small address book and tuppence for the phone box. I mean is it really worth paying £20 or £30 a month on a contract of hundreds of pounds on the top of line phone for something that a phone box provides for next to nothing? Anyway today i shall be talking about how Mobiles claim to bring us all together and in touch, i think however that is to the contrary.

Here comes it, one of my favourite lines, Back in my day, well yes this really is a back in my day thing, if you class 1996 as my day, anyway yes in more recent years what has magically appeared in every persons palm whether you are 8 or 80, The mobile phone, i as a person have no problem with it, it has the potential to be a great thing, bring remote parts of the world together where traditional land line technology would be too expensive or simply impossible to build, 

It is not this that i am complaining about, oh no, it is the need to be in constant touch with each other, like every single text, tweet, and Facebook update is immensely valuable, and with the obsession with technology  Which mobile phones are not uniformly responsible for, however i do think them to be the main instigators of the trouble we have these days when it comes to face to face communication, almost all the skills people once had have been lost, people no longer use appropriate greetings, whatever happened to the  what i would call, extended greeting such as, Good morning and how are you this pleasant morning, today however the vast majority would say Hi or Alright, now is this a lack of social skills due to technology or just a Generational thing? 

Don't get me wrong i am not saying that all this technology has turned us all into socially awkward beings, no i am merely stating my belief that we lack things in real life conversation due to the abundance of conversation online and on the mobile telephone, and yes i know that young lovers in the 1950's right up to the 1990's would stay on the LANDLINE for hours on end, but that was only one medium and at least it was still speech, with texting, it is completely emotionless!

Touching on my last point something else that has come to mind, people today do not right letters! now i am not part of the majority, and i am sure some people do still stay in touch on a personal basis through the post, i am yet to find someone (other than those i write letters too) that sends letters as a means to stay in touch, if i had my way phones would only ring and text, who really needs to use Facebook and twitter and the internet all the while? Granted a long train journey, or a quick flick on the web while enjoying a cigarette does kill time but is it really needed?

But are mobile phones a good thing? always on hand in an emergency? giving mothers confidence that they can send their child out somewhere and they can always have that all important line of contact?

Whatever your stance on mobile phones and technology i have no doubt whatsoever, and i think it an indeputible point that they have had some impact on Face to Face communication!