Communication

I've been dicking around on facebook recently. I think i read about it in a article and wanted to see what it was all about. I had a myspace page and found it to be rather childish so abandoned it. I got a message on my "fun wall" on facebook today from my niece asking me if i was going to post to this blog more often now that i had posted it on my facebook profile. She actually reads this blog. I'm glad somebody does. My family are not good communicators. I rarely talk to my family even though i love them very much. At least with facebook, which all of my sister's family use, we can know a little more about what we all are up to without having to communicate directly like by talking on the phone. Why is talking on the phone so hard? I don't know but is seems to be.
My best friend and adopted son John Henry and I haven't seen much of each other these past few months because she is carrying a very heavy load this semester in graduate school but we do use instant messaging to stay in touch and keep each other informed about hot topice of mutual interest. She is also one who abhors the telephone and rarely returns my phone calls. I told her the last time we were together that it would be nice it hear her voice once in a while during the long periods when we can't find time to be in the same room together. She asked me why and my answer was that hearing one's voice is a much richer more complete form of communicating. One can learn much from tone of voice, inflection, timbre. One can tell if someone is tired, sad, angry, bored. All of that is lost with email or instant messaging. It is a very flat form of communicating which can sometimes lead to misinterpretation of meaning without the richness that one's voice adds to a conversation.
I guess the point i'm trying to make is that in some ways the internet has opened up ways for us to stay in touch which is good but if we are not careful we'll end up making personal physical communication a thing of the past.
That won't be good!