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Jewish World Review March 16, 2012/ 22 Adar, 5772 Lok at me whn Im tlkg 2 u By Lori Borgman
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I miss eye contact. It seems to have gone the way of yellow pages and travel agents. Don't take this personally, but I'm having trouble connecting with the top of your head while you connect with someone else via Blackberry, iPhone, or Droid by texting. I've never gotten a strong connection from the top of your head. It doesn't emote. It doesn't respond. It's just hair. Some of it doesn't even go in the direction it should. You have a cowlick. Besides, eyes are the windows to the soul, not the top of the head. It's eyes I want, not flaky scalp. I know, it's important. You've got clients to tend, a boss to please and, above all, you need to tweet what you're eating. And how could you possibly be away from Facebook for five minutes? It's all urgent all the time. It's hard not to feel miffed talking to the top of your head. Slighted. Annoyed. Overlooked. And don't give me that phony baloney text stance where your thumbs are flying but you periodically say, "Uh-huh." Then you glance up every few seconds and do that fake little laugh. I just told you about a three-legged dog that is blind in both eyes, deaf in one ear and you're doing the fake laugh thing. And please, save me the "I'm not checking my phone at the table." You're checking your phone under the table. What? You thought I was born yesterday? Nobody's napkin slides off their lap that much. And what about those parties of eight and ten gathered around a large table in a restaurant but nobody is talking or laughing because they're all on their phones texting to other people who aren't there. Way to party like its 2012. The entire world has turned into teenage girls. I take that back. It was an insult to teenage girls. "Why text when you can call?" I ask. "Why call when you can text?" booms the answer. I receive a text from the youngest asking if I am free for a movie. "Call me and find out," I text back. She says she doesn't like talking to me on the phone because I sometimes pause to make a comment to her father and she doesn't have my full attention. If that's not the cell phone calling the landline rude. "How is that different from you texting while I'm three feet away talking to you?" "You're making noise. I'm not making noise." "But you're communicating with someone else while I'm communicating to you. Someone else is more important," I say. "They're not more important, they're just there." "Just there" trumps her mother. But you are making noise. Click, click, click, click. The laughing out loud, the chortle and the snicker at a message from someone not in the room. You can't do screen time and face time at the same time. OK, you might be able to do it, but you can't do it well. So what do you want? Quantity or quality? I say we vote. All those for no texting during face-to-face personal conversations? The eyes have it.
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JWR contributor Lori Borgman is the author of , most recently, "Catching Christmas" (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) and I Was a Better Mother Before I Had Kids To comment, please click here. To visit her website click here.
© 2012, Lori Borgman
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