In Humans We Trust...

The feel of turning a warm well read page. The quiet sound of your finger running across the words, remembering and memorizing. The crisp and crackle of a freshly turned page, your excitement growing as the story unfolds.

Books. Good old fashioned books. The kind you can hold and feel and dog ear a page when yet another book mark goes missing. Not an e-book. The kind that strains your eye sight and makes you lose your place as you scroll down the screen.

Call me an old timer but I still put all my faith in a real book. I want to curl up under the covers on a cool night and cradle my over read slightly worn out copy of Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline. 

But unfortunately the time of the book is fast coming to an end. Technology has reared its futuristic head and torn away yet another memory of a simple childhood.

I, of course, have benefited greatly from technology. If not for its capabilities, I would be writing these words (depending on how far back we go) with a pen and paper. My words would not be read by people from the far corners of the globe. And you, dear reader, would have to suffer my many spelling errors if not for the glorious invention of the spell-checker. So what exactly am I complaining about?

Communication.

The simple straight forward act of having a conversation with another human being.

Interaction.

A tennis game of words punctuated by a physical gesture of a tap on the shoulder, a hand shake or even a high five.

The next time you go to a restaurant or attend a wedding reception, take a look around you. Young and old alike are on their phones. Texting. Instagramming. Tweeting. Mind you, its absolutely fantastic to be able to connect with anyone in any part of the world in an instant. Sharing a photograph or a video with a tap of a finger.

But what about sharing that moment with the person next to you? Have we turned into robots? Its become so much easier to communicate our feelings with emoticons. Has a real hug and a smile lost its value? Should we expect brain chips, space homes and lab designed relationships to make its presence very soon?

Having a cup of tea at our local all night coffee shop with my best friend used to be a weekly routine. We would catch up on the weeks events, have a good laugh, make plans for the weekend. Really just talk to each other, face to face. Even though now, due to time management and other responsibilities, our regular routine has dwindled to more of a monthly affair, But our quality time together has lost its value. Why? Because more time is spent checking emails, browsing Facebook or uploading a badly taken photograph of the dish we were just served then actually indulging in a conversation with the person sitting across the table. And its even more frustrating when its not you doing these things. Here I am bursting to share my weekly updates but instead I am being given more attention by the grain carrying ants running across the table. So how did I solve this problem?

For the longest time I stayed off the smart phone wagon. Then I fell into the hype and invested in my first iPhone. Insisting that I didn't need to be constantly connected, I refused the thrill of a data plan. 3 years later with my resolve failing miserably, I succumbed. A classic case of “If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!” The upside of this was that I had the world at my fingertips. The downside, even with every effort to remain anonymous, every faucet of my life had been unleashed for the world to see. Even more so, the looming threat of turning into a lonely person preferring the company of machines was fast approaching.

The list of advancements technology has given us is endless and mind blowing. Trying to remain bias on the subject and its speedy progress is not an easy task. As much as I would like to stand rooted to my old fashioned beliefs, being pushed by this out of control tidal wave seems inevitable.

All I am asking for is to not forget who we are and where we came from. Hold on to your humanity and remember what its like to be human because I think its a pretty cool thing to be..