In respone to kelsey's first question

In response to Kelsey’s first question, I think that as a society we have become so involved with our phones via text messaging and email readily available to us. I personally find it so ridiculous that when I am having a conversation with someone that they have to check their phone at least once. We are all guilty of falling into this trap; I know I am for sure. We all have grown up in this world where the media is constantly at our finger tips one way or another.
In this way it has hindered our ability to have face to face social conversations. It is almost impossible to have to a five minute conversation without someone checking their phone. But I think that people are aware of this. Growing up in this culture we have the ability to recognize when we are using our cell phones too much and we can cut down. I know several people including myself that will just plain ignore texts and calls when having a conversation with someone. Even though it is hard, it shows so much more respect to that person, saying you are worth my time to talk to you. And I think that is something as a whole we could be more educated on.
But I also think that e-mail and text messages open a lot more doors for conversation. Just today I was sitting next to one of my friends and she was on the phone with her mother. The conversation was getting heated and my friends said mom, I’m going to email you with the information and we can talk that way. She said I love you and I will talk to you later and hung up the phone. This is a great way not to further the tension between her and mother and she could lay everything out on the table and not get too frustrated. It ended up being miscommunication and this was a great outlet. So in instances such as that I think that it furthers our social communication rather than hinder it.
In some ways trading our ‘ears’ for our ‘eyes’ might not be such a bad thing after all but I think that it opens doors for communication but may also close a few in the process, which is true of many things in life.