The problem with blogs

I would like to name this entry "The Problem with Blogs" or alternately "Andrea (ignoring bad knee) Climbs Onto Her Soapbox". I almost entitled it the problem with society but wanted to get y'all hooked first.

I've decided that the problem with blogs is fairly representative of some problems in today's society. We have become such an email, messenger, text message society that we are drowning in our own literacy. What happened to the days when you knew a friend by the warmth of their hug or their quiet sympathy over coffee? Do we now define friendship by the emoticons in an instant message or a mention in a blog?

I was thinking about what we lose when we rely purely on the written word as a means of communication. I'm probably guiltier then most when it comes to messenger and reading and loving all things written and relying very heavily on electronic communication. But today someone took something in one of my entries to mean something completely different from what I actually meant. It was just one of those movie-style misunderstandings where someone has suspicions about something and it just fits in perfectly with something I'd written about something else. It never would have happened if I didn't have a blog. If I'd said the same thing to the same person over the phone, or even *gasp* in person they would have known by the inflection in my voice, my body language and so many other clues that I didn't mean what they were afraid I meant. So what are we losing as we turn further away from verbal communication?

A few days ago I might not have realized exactly how upset a friend was if she'd emailed me instead of phoned. Today I might have erected a wall without ever realizing it. I'm not going to throw away my computer and there will be no book burning. But maybe tomorrow I'm going to call my friends instead of text messaging them.