Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The End of the World

My children, except for Luke who is a confirmed Luddite, continue to force me into the 21st century. So far, I’ve resisted Twitter and Facebook (though I’ve promised to reconsider it this summer), and I’ve succumbed to email (indispensible), blogging (really fun) and now instant messaging.

Though I’ve succumbed to IM-ing, I’ve not sure I get the point of it. First, when a send-response thing gets going, the chatters tend to talk over each other, especially an impatient, fast typist like myself. And with multiple chatters, it’s chaos—I feel a migraine coming on.

Second, the grammar and spelling associated with IMs is appalling—the teacher in me has conniptions. (In case you aren’t familiar with a Connie-conniption: my eyes light up with dark unearthly burning, my voice become gravelly, the hair on the back of my neck sticks up and I prowl for child-flesh.)

But here’s the worst thing, my kids IM me from their bedrooms! Hello, get off your rumpus and find me—our house is not big and I don’t sit in front of my computer waiting to be IM’ed. Does anybody have any idea what this is going to do to interpersonal communication? Not to mention the grammar-spelling issue!

I could be wrong, but this may be the end of the world as we know it…

4 comments:

  1. Mom, none of us needed to talk to you. It's not like we were discussing anything real or impending or dangerous.

    Well, except for when we mentioned the fact that we could, in all different rooms, hear the music Dad was playing on his headphones. That was imminent and dangerous--to his ears.

    On a side note, one sad thing about chatting with a visual mother is that she processes the typed words better than if you're talking. Plus she has to pay attention to carry on a conversation. No more "Yeah, sure, whatever." Although, I guess that's more Dad. And even if he gets gmail, I don't think he'll use the chat feature.

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  2. Hmm... It may be to the advantage to the child whose flesh you are craving as you have conniptions to be a safe distance away.

    Really, though, I agree their is no point for people to email each other when they happen to live in the same household. It's just kind of useless. Hohum.

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  3. No! It's happening already! Andrew has already lost the ability to put the correct spelling of "there/their/they're" in his sentences!! OH NO!!!

    Mom recently asked me why I don't just talk on the telephone instead. I gave her my best scathing look.

    Anyways, our phone is always plugged up by two people chatting across the Atlantic, so the telephone is out anyways.

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  4. ..... Careless error, I guess. Humph.

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