The Digital Age

An interesting conversation sparked between Vivek and I while in Philly... It started with the discussion of how I recently received a four page handwritten letter from my college friend, Shamita. The deep and special emotion and thought that Shamita transmitted in that letter is really unlike any phone conversation I have had in recent years. Self-admittedly, I'm not a big phone person and I never have been, but still it was almost sad how our relationships have gone from true depth to convenience as we progress in a digital world.

Adam provided a story that is testament to this trend as well. He mentioned that when he went through his late grandfather's possessions, he found all of these hand written letters between his grandfather and his father. What he learned from reading those letters about those important people in his life can't be replicated these days - or at least would be much harder to replicate. What would the current day practice be? Keeping a thumb drive of all emails to/from important people in your life and passing that drive down to your grandchildren? Do we even write long emails to our loved ones anymore? What happens when that method of storage is replaced by something else? There is just no replacement for paper with people's handwriting and sometimes even a scent or a teardrop. You can't capture that digitally.

Yes, communication is easier. Yes, we can communicate with our cousins in India daily at virtually no charge over Skype. Yes, I talk to my family almost daily. But, our conversations, because they are so frequent, are taken for granted. I just recently learned that a family friend was engaged via my facebook daily news feed!

And to take it one step further - take the example of digital pictures. Yes, in theory you can have your digital pictures printed out and put them in albums or just make nice albums online, but people don't. I remember picture albums were like coffee table books at people's houses. You could walk into their houses and open up an album and instantly learn so much about them.

Is the gain of convenience worth really worth it?