Steve Jobs & Bill Gates are widely acknowledged as pioneers of the current ‘Technological Age’. They are also responsible for propelling many of the significant advances of that age. Perhaps, the most noteworthy of those advances have focused upon the means of communication. Anthropologists have long maintained that the fundamental distinction between human beings and other members of the Animal Kingdom is that Humans are capable of communicating at a much higher level of sophistication. So the question is, have recent developments in technology served to further enhance our communication skills? I am not concerned with whether or not they have provided a potential to do so. I simply want to know if they actually have done so. Have social media engines like Facebook, Twitter and your commonplace e-mail forums like Yahoo & Google made us better at communicating with our fellow Man? I would argue that they have not. In fact, I would suggest that they have diminished and debased communicative skills.

I first started travelling on my own in the early ‘70s…England, France, Spain, Greece, Morocco, etc. In the early ‘80s I moved on to Asia…Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, Cambodia, India and so on. Those journeys were especially interesting not only for the exotic places I visited but, for the people I met. Hundreds of hours were spent exchanging anecdotes, information and, once in a while, bodily fluids with fellow travelers. The conversations that took place in backpacker bars and bungalow restaurants were often fascinating and many continued into the wee hours of the morning. It was a great opportunity for me to meet people from other countries and other cultures. As the saying goes, “If you speak two languages you’re bi-lingual, if you speak three languages you’re tri-lingual and if you speak one language you’re American”. Fortunately for me, English had become the international language and, despite their language of origin, everybody tried admirably to speak it.

When I became a husband and a father, my travelling days slowed down enormously. Still, I have had a few occasions to visit backpacker haunts with my wife. The ambience was similar to what I had known years before…bamboo furniture, palm-thatched roofs, coconut shell ashtrays, etc. However, instead of rock & roll, the music (noise) was rap & hip-hop. And, most notably, very few people appeared to be conversing with one another. They were fixed upon their laptops, smart phones and I-Pads connected to Facebook, Twitter or a host of other social media sites on the Internet. Even couples sitting at the same table rarely looked at each other. Face to face communication has, to a great extent, become passé. (See, I speak a bit of French!)

What’s even more alarming is the manner in which the English language has been bastardized by those who hurl it into the black hole of the Internet. Rules of spelling and grammar and general syntax are shamelessly forsaken. Much of the media coverage of news and sports are equally to blame. English is a very sophisticated and nuanced language. Therein lies its beauty. Among its many attributes is a myriad assortment of tenses which enhance clear and specific enunciation. Unfortunately, the current fashion has been to dumb everything down to the present tense. Most young people grow up watching sports and sports announcers are disgraceful in their abuse of the language. “If he drops that ball, the run scores and the game is tied.” Is it too much trouble to say, “If he had dropped that ball, the run would have scored and the game would be tied”? Children who listen to that kind of rubbish end up speaking poorly.

Last week I spent two days at a cheap hotel along the Mekong River drinking beer and reading poetry. Byron, Keats and Shelley…by God, those boys could write and what they wrote glorified the English language. I wonder how many people read them today. Their kind of exalted prose might well be incomprehensible these days. What a pity!

I could like continue to make the case as to like why the technological advances propelled by Steve Jobs & Bill Gates have like, you know, diminished people’s communicative skills but, I mean, like why bother?