Making the Personal Impersonal

To my friends it comes as no surprise that I am not big on social media (wrote the girl who blogs about her life & musings for all the interweb to see), but it’s true. Please allow me to clarify: I do not think that communication via social media is a substitute for other forms of personal contact. Nor do I believe that sensitive or personal information should be sent via a private Facebook message, or worse yet, as a comment on someone’s wall.

Yes, like most people, I, too, am guilty of posting birthday comments on Facebook, but it’s usually to an acquaintance or a friend that I’m not particularly close to. For those that I do have close relationships with I try to send birthday cards along with shout-outs via FB and/or blog and I always make it a point to at least give them a phone call. Call me old-fashioned, but somehow hearing someone’s voice seems much more personal than reading a message. In my opinion, quick text messages seem too impersonal for intimate sentiments between good friends.

So, imagine my surprise and shock when I learned of my grandfather’s passing through a Facebook status update. Or when Jay learned of his grandmother’s passing through an email. Or when I received this text early, yesterday morning.

Shock. Sadness. Disbelief.

Shock when learning of the bad news. Sadness for my uncle, his wife and children, and our family as a whole. Then utter disbelief that someone could be so insensitive to send that kind of message via text. I’m aware there is no good way to learn of a loved one’s passing, but learning about in this way seemed so insensitive and wrong.

I opened the text expecting another silly message or meme that so often filled our text logs. I definitely was not expecting to see that message. It hurt. Because the reality was that, no, in fact I did not hear the bad news before she did. Apparently, my mom called to inform Jay & I, but I had already left the house for the day. She told Jay, but opted to tell me at a later time knowing it would upset me while at school & clinic. Needless to say, that was far from what actually occurred.

In a world where people are constantly connected through social media, why is it so difficult to maintain real personal connections? It seems that in our quest to stay “connected”, we further deprive ourselves of the opportunity to truly connect with people on a sincere & intimate level.
Thus further isolating ourselves. Am I alone in feeling this way? Do I just need to get with the times? Are you guilty of (some or all) the things I mentioned? Feel free to express your opinions in the comment section– but please be respectful.