Communicative disease.

By being a language major, being currently enrolled in a communication class, and having a communication major as a best friend, I should know what the word communication means. But it sure is hazy.

In the class I'm taking (communication in the classroom), we have debated what is and isn't considered communication. Some people have a difficult time grasping the concept that you don't have to try to communicate, but I think I'm under the (possibly erroneous) impression that we communicate continually. Well, except in states of cognitive unresponsiveness -- about which I am not 100% certain. So if we communicate all the time, what's this communication breakdown that the world is experiencing?

It's interesting to me that we have labeled this time in history The Communication Age. Also called the The Technological Age. Technology has become synonymous with communication, basically. Now, my OrgCom-approved vocabulary is rusty, but isn't technology (email, text messaging, instant messaging, telephone, voicemail, etc.) the context of the communication with language most often being the medium? (It's getting all jumbled up in my head because the History of the English Language according to Lorrah says that language is "conscious communication that is consistent within a culture.") Anyway, I think all this terminology is irrelevant to what I want to say.

And what I want to say in pretty circular, so if your head's not spinning yet, hang on.

Technology -- what has been called communication and is at least supposed to be making the world a smaller place by facilitating near-instant, wide-spread communication -- has been blamed for the communication breakdown. This term communication breakdown I'd say, refers to the dwindling of human contact and interpersonal communication. Because we all now have to have a cellphone stuck to one ear and an earbud in the other, we cannot even communicate with those around us. Or can we?

Like I've already said, we are always saying something -- with or without words, with or without intention. And when we are so distracted by the pieces of silicon and plastic wedged in our heads, what we are saying is pretty clear: I couldn't care less about what's going on around me. That's be a pretty offensive message to send to other people. But here's the rub: No one is receiving the message because we have also blocked up our receptors.

I forgot one thing: In the communication model, there is a recipient of a message. But there are no more recipients. Or at least there are only a few. We have to listen, too. And it's hard to listen when we don't shut up.

I don't mean to be negative. Really. And I'm sure this rambling is uniformed and full of holes and generally incoherent. But are we just sending messages out into the air with no one to receive them? We're all trying to say something --and I know what we all have to say is important and significant -- but it just floats away from us into an atmosphere of unretrieved messages. It's not unlike a book, which says nothing at all until someone picks it up and reads it. It's not unlike me typing all of this and then sending it out into the unknown -- not knowing and maybe not even caring if I'm heard.

That's not healthy.

Very Loosely Associated: Golden Silence

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