The Next Best Thing to Sliced Bread

By Melanie Chung
January 30, 2006

There are few inventions that have actually made living life a tad easier. At one point, when we all had hair on our back and loincloths as clothing, the wheel was invented. We became better. The possibility of living without such a small item has become unthinkable. We build buildings with it, it transports us, and it has limitless uses (okay so that's not entirely true).

So we all grew up with the wheel. Our horse and carriages depended on it while we rode the dirt roads to our neighbours to enjoy a nice slice of fresh home baked bread. We watched as Little Miss Muffet cut through the bread with the dull knife and suddenly the bread wasn't quite bread anymore. More like a nice flat sheet of baked flour.

100 years later, Wonder Bread is as common as underwear. So what can possibly top the oh so wonderful sliced bread?

MSN Messenger!

We are all acutely aware of the power of technology and the hold it has on 21st century living. But has that hold made us incapable of communicating? Communicating on a level that involves a real human voice not garbled by a signal or a bad internet connection? The telephone clearly brought about a new revolution in communicating over long distances and the internet is supposed to do the same. So why is it that I often question the intent in an email or MSN message?

Wireless communication is growing at an unbelievable rate from emails, to text messages, with a gazillion new gadgets every year. Every year we as a society distance ourselves further and further apart from everyday human connections. Messaging of any sort feels cold and unflinching. Messaging unveils infinite interpretations of what may otherwise be considered harmless if spoken. The tone of voice or body language is where I believe, and many sociologists believe, where we connect with one another.

Maybe it's hard to get that guy across the bar to take a look at you because his head is buried too deep in that Blackberry *ahem* "Crackberry". Or maybe it's that girl sitting across from you in the bus you've been having trouble getting to notice you because she's too busy text messaging. And that nice young woman next to her can't hear you asking for the time because she's playing her iPod too loudly.

Our society has become so preoccupied with our gadgets that we've come to be a society filled with loners, hermits, and people who are inept in social situations. During a night of relaxing it up in a bar, a friend of mine was anxious to return home before midnight. I asked her why and she said simply "I want to go on MSN." This baffled me considering she was out partying with all of her friends. She was single at the time so I couldn't understand who she wanted to chat with. Then it dawned on me. My friend was much more accustomed to talking with her friends in her PJ's in the comfort of her own home. So much so that simply being outside of her house was going outside of her social parameters.

How did we get this way and why are we so willing to accept it? Maybe its become so difficult for anyone to meet a mate outside of matchmaking, online dating and dating services because we are so disgusted by the thought of a total stranger saying a friendly "hullo!" on the street or a smile in the coffee bar. Have we become so arrogant that we are immediately suspicious of the first stranger to offer an amicable conversation in the elevator?

As the years pass it becomes easier and easier for me to say "that only happens in the movies" when it comes to the offbeat encounters characters have in the Hollywood romantic comedies. And even as an introvert I'd prefer the randomness of a quick smile after bumping into someone in line at the coffee shop.

Wireless communication, of course has also allowed what was once impossible to become possible. Sometimes it is easier to send an email to the boss up on the 10th floor than to make a phone call to help you move further up the corporate ladder. However, I do believe that relying on it as our only form of communication and favouring it over real human contact can lead to an angry, bitter, degenerate self.

Take Dr. Pseudo for example.