Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about

At 11:42 last night, I had a bizarre craving to write, so this is the first (and last) time I'll blog something from my diary.

It is amazing how much easier it is to express yourself through EMC (Electronically Mediated Communication, AKA English teachers Made up Crap) than in person. Oh dear, I have dropped English and I'm still using this ridiculous jargon. Fuuck. Anyway. I do wonder if it's because in the flesh, or even on the phone, that person seems so much more real. Through, say, email there is no apparent recipient other than a jumbled assortment of letters, dots and underscores separated by an '@'. You are just emptying your mind on the keyboard then clicking it away into cyberspace. It's as though you're writing to the fictitious caricature of that person that you've built up in your mind and thus do not need to deal with the reality of the situation.

Another part of me thinks this is an incredibly pessimistic way to see it. While this may be partly true, I guess it's also because it allows you those extra few precious seconds in which to formulate a coherent sentence. When you are so overwhelmed with anger, love, excitement, guilt, fear, joy or what ever, it can be impossible to express, so attempting to produce the necessary words spontaneously can be somewhat of a challenge.

But then in a way it seems a shame we turn to these get-out-of-jail-free methods. By allowing ourselves time, we step back from reality and ignore the unwanted initial thoughts that yes, we did actually think. While it can be unnecessarily damaging to share our every thought, I wonder if we slightly undermine our ability to cope with emotional situations because we have the get-out of dealing with it from a distance.

This seems reminiscent of all the adults who say young people have no social skills because of the internet. That's just melodramatic and largely inaccurate. But maybe, just maybe, there are some things we don't deal with the way we should because of this damn EMC.

I'm sorry. I'll write something less preachy tomorrow.