{"id":906,"date":"2014-02-19T03:58:31","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T03:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/class2017\/?p=906"},"modified":"2025-07-08T15:27:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T19:27:13","slug":"go-out-and-talk-to-someone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/2014\/02\/19\/go-out-and-talk-to-someone\/","title":{"rendered":"Go out and talk to someone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Got a call from my mom and girlfriend today. We just talked about a few things, I won\u2019t go into details, but the important thing is that they called. It\u2019s wonderful to hear their voices and get to have a meaningful conversation with them, which I think is lost a lot these days.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve highlighted my woes towards technology in my Christmas Blogs, but just so I don\u2019t sound like too much of a backwards \u201cPuritan\u201d, let me say that all technology is not inherently evil. I write a lot, and not just my blogs, and if it weren\u2019t for the Internet I would have never discovered Avatar<\/em>, Warhammer 40K<\/em> or many other things I have grown to like. I think my life has improved from these things, and it has certainly helped my creativity.<\/p>\n

That being said, all the Element Bending and Super Soldiers in the world cannot replace interactions with real, physical people. I might be introverted at times, but I enjoy talking to people and getting to know them. And there is quite a lot that can be learned just by listening to someone talk; you can learn their emotional makeup, their verbal tics and personality just through their voice and the conversation you have with them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lot harder to learn anything through social media.<\/p>\n

As a writer I\u2019m good as channeling character emotions through conversation and dialogue, but when I\u2019m speaking to someone on Facebook or texting I cannot make motions to emphasize my words or change the inflections of my voice to hint at worry or sarcasm. For people who know me well it\u2019s easier, but suppose it was someone I didn\u2019t know? How would they know when I\u2019m just joking or when I\u2019m being serious? The answer is, most often they don\u2019t, and thus I have a very good chance at offending someone when I try to be funny or sympathetic. And that\u2019s terrible… Superman references aside, it really is. How many friendships were wrecked because someone tried to break up with someone else over Facebook or text?<\/p>\n

Also, one of the biggest problems of social media is that you have to spend a lot of time staring at a screen. I\u2019ve already displayed my distaste for people spending too much time on their electronic devices and not enough time talking, so I won\u2019t repeat my rant, but it\u2019s still a relevant issue. Screens and isolation are bad, and you need to spend time less isolated from other people and getting to know them, face to face.<\/p>\n

Social media can be helpful, but not for use all the time. Nothing beats genuine human interaction, as it reminds us that there are still people out there and we still have to have human emotions with one another. So I encourage you all to go out and talk to someone face-to-face, be they friend or relative; you\u2019ll feel much better and more connected to the world.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Got a call from my mom and girlfriend today. We just talked about a few things, I won\u2019t go into details, but the important thing is that they called. It\u2019s wonderful to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bobby-black-17"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1185,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions\/1185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/class2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}