Disconnect

A site that I go on a lot is suddenly not online. Through this site I am connected to people that I consider my friends. I consider these people important. I spend time with them. I invest pieces of myself in them. They, however, are only known through this cyberspace we call the internet. They have disappeared. Now, I know that it is probably just a server malfunction of some sort and that website will be back up and running...but it made me think about the relationships that we have. Do we have meaningful relationships with people we see every day? Or do we only have meaningful relationships with people we can hide behind a computer with? If facebook, myspace, and various other sites disappeared...would the majority of our friends disappear? How many lonely people would there be out in the world? Do we even know how to communicate person to person? As an educator...I know that my students don't know how to speak or write in proper English...it's all in text slang or IM slang. Yes, they talk that way too.... Is the world coming to cyber-relationships only...are we losing our ability to communicate effectively with each other? Do we know how to have a conversation? I was at a friend's house not too long along and we ended up tweeting to each other through our twitter apps on our phones. How ridiculous is that? We've become a society that has forgotten the pure joy of sitting around and having meaningful conversations and dig deep into each other....not just learn about each other's surface...but about their souls...what really makes them unique. Many of us just hide and only allow our true selves come out when we are hiding behind a computer or phone. What happens when we wake up one day and our world is disconnected and we are left in the very pungent reality?