Death of Face-to-Face; ICT Etiquette

This past Friday, my fiancé decided to go to a movie - Paranormal Activity 4.  Going to a movie is not too frequent an activity as it is expensive, nor do we have a lot of time that isn't filled with various classes and assignments as we are both fourth year university students.

After spending our nearly thirty dollars on tickets and snacks, we found our seats.  Looking down through the seats, I could see so many lit up screens.  This made me think of a poem I wrote last year for a creative writing class:

Death of Face-to-Face

iPod, iPad, iPhone

iLife

eMail, text

Digitized world.

Infinitely attached to the world,

Hopelessly disconnected.

Too busy for our family,

Check Facebook 24 times a day.

Take one dose per hour, repeat daily.

867 “friends”, but not one to call.

Hollow social life, like a dollar-store vase.

Notifications, news feeds;

Feeds like a parasite,

Consuming our energy.

Wasting our time.

#insanity #isthisreallife

#whathappenedtoreality

Communication instantly across the world: unremarkable.

Communication across the dinner table: non-existent.

Phones and computers sewn to our hands,

The stitches dig deep, technology controlling us.

Puppets at the ends of their cables,

Dancing to whatever song they play. 

Cast away your digital tethers.

Meet a friend and look them in the eye.

Ignore the buzz, for just a moment.

Step back into reality.

Looking at all those phones lit up made me think about why one would even bother to be at the movie. If you're out with someone, I think you should be focused on them, not involved in multiple conversations at the same time.  When I am with someone in a one-on-one setting and their face is buried in their phone half the time, it makes me feel unimportant, not worth the time of day.  If you were on a date with someone, you wouldn't spend half your time speaking to someone at the next table would you?

Amongst all the options we have for communicating with one another: e-mail, instant messaging, text messages, phone, video chats, airplane sky-writing... - I still prefer face-to-face communication with people.  Only through being with a person can you truly understand what they are saying.  There is so much more to communication than words - voice inflection, body language, touch, facial expression...and only through real time, in person contact can you get all these facets of communication.  Of course, I'm not saying that I don't text message or message through Facebook, but I know when it is more appropriate to talk to someone in person.

Sometimes I fear that with all the technological advances we have, the ability of people to clearly communicate with another is actually declining.  I think that part of our responsibility as ICT literacy educators is to teach students when different forms of communication is appropriate.  Perhaps along with ICT literacy, we should also be teaching students about ICT Etiquette.  Digital communication cannot be a replacement for personal, one-on-one contact.