What Are We Coming To?

Guilty as charged. Yes, me. I can't believe what I just did. Yet, I truly believe that it's indicative of where we are heading as a society. I share a prison-cell-sized cubicle with the two leads that work for me. It's an arrangement that works well for us in our environment. One of them just asked me the location of some particular files on our server. I found the path to it, copied it from my address bar and sent it to him via Instant Messenger. Yes, he's about eight feet behind me. Yes he can hear me perfectly well over the noise of our distribution center. I could easily have spoken the path to him using the drive name and major folder names. He is certainly more than capable of taking it from that point. But, I choose to IM it to him - yes, I just used a noun as a verb; another thing that is showing a rampant growth rate, but I digress. Heaven forbid I turn and actually speak to someone on my staff. That kind of personal interaction may help to build a better working relationship and possibly further build, do I dare say, trust!? The art of interpersonal communication is on the decline. Email, text, IM... none of them verbal. All easy to put your own feelings into and completely change the intent of the message and cause fabricated issues. A short-coming of technology that we are allowing to happen for the return of better efficiency, which may not even be accurate. Talk to each other, don't just communicate.