Information Is No Substitute For Communication

The heralded arrival of the Information Age is upon us, and has been for a number of years. It’s filled with high-tech devices and satellite images and instant communications. Data fills our desktops, our airwaves, our cable systems and our telephones. Routers and processors and motherboards all silently work to make the world a smaller place.

Few can argue the influence of the Internet and the proliferation of the silicon chip, but they are nothing without the syntax and sentences of the information that they proliferate. Without ideas, the bits and bytes of computers are empty carriers of energy. We still need the power of words. And then there is the use of those words. We may be wasting them.

Despite having every technological advantage — Twitter, Facebook, iPads, iPhone, etc. — we suffer from simple communication.

We have fallen into the trap that information is a adequate substitute for communication. It is not, as we are seeing before our own eyes. Marriages, friendships, communities, and nations continue to be in struggle. We just aren’t communicating.

It starts at the most personal level. If I update my “status,” does anybody really care? If I update my “page,” are my deepest longings met? If I text or tweet or e-mail, can I find meaning? While I appreciate my cyber-relationships, there’s nothing like the real thing. We still need relationship. We still need other. Come on over. Have a glass of tea. Laugh with me. Cry with me. Be with me.