They’re screening their calls…literally

My FOF friend, Harriet, was lamenting that twenty somethings today don’t know how to have real conversations. “Real,” as in on the phone. When she suggested to her son that he call a contact of hers to discuss employment opportunities he might have after he graduates from college next spring, he told her, “I’ve emailed and didn’t get a response.”

“You’ve got to call and talk to him,” she responded. “People like him are extremely busy and he probably never saw your email.

“I know what I’m doing,” her son answered.

Computers are the primary–if  not exclusive–modes of communication for young adults, many of whom have no idea how to confront any kind of situation head on. They hide behind their computers.

And no one is going out of their way to try and find them.

 

 

0 Responses to “They’re screening their calls…literally”

  1. Toby Wollin says:

    Let’s see now, what other skills seem to have gone out the window along with being able to hold a social conversation: handwriting, social dancing, knowing by touch, feel and appearance the quality of items such as shoes, handbags, and clothing, writing thank you and sympathy notes, knowing how to eat with a knife and fork. The list goes on and on. And I know why they’ve gone the way of knowing how to get into and out of a girdle: Our parents may have taught us this stuff (or paid to have it taught) to us…and we resented it and thought it elitist, stupid and old fashioned, so we didn’t teach our kids. And then they got into the clutches of cell phones, texting and the internet. And you end up with a generation of people whose idea of ‘handling confrontation with a roomate’ consists of turning their back on the person and sending a nasty IM or putting something on Facebook.

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    • Cecile says:

      AMEN!!

      Cécile

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  2. Cecile says:

    This is a sore subject with mothers of anyone old enough to be able to text. Ask anyone. These kids do not answer their phones!! I have to text my daughter to tell her I am going to call her! Really! And then my nephew and his wife do the exact same thing! We got an e-mail to tell us she was expecting her first child (this text at ten thirty at night!!!!). This is an attorney!! I was aghast! I called my sister in dismay! “What is happening to these people?” Iasked. Well they have lost the art of oral communication. They can’t carry a conversation at a cocktail party, except to talk about themselves… My son will call me from Australia, but then he is almost forty… Ahem!

    As much as I love technology, there is no excuse for the lack of communication skills these young people suffer…

    Cécile

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