One of the most important ways to work for a better future is to improve communications between and among people. With all the instant media available today, we could foresee a future in which we can reach out to anyone, any time, anywhere. But can people really communicate with other people appropriately anymore? I’m not so sure. I don’t know if this will eventually be a good or bad thing, or maybe the day will come when it won’t be important. What is important now, however, is that we are heading into a communications warp.

People are moving away from civic centers in which they lived with other people who held different views, and they are moving into neighborhoods where just about everyone has the same point of view as them on just about everything. So the lines drawn between political and religious beliefs seem to be thicker and darker, with less cordial conversation between belief groups. Newspaper readership has been declining, and people get most of their news on TV, or, if we consider the younger populations, from the Internet. So we don’t go deep, except in what interests us, and we don’t go broad, because we filter out what doesn’t interest us. Great. We only know what we want to know, and we’re not interested in what the other guy thinks.

Young people have lost the ability to discriminate in their method of communication. Everything is evolving toward the texting style, which uses highly informal language, icons and abbreviations, and shortcuts. That’s fine for communicating with friends, but now employers are turning away young applicants who respond to job interviews and follow-ups with that same style of communication. Some of these youngsters could be highly creative and productive, but they sabotage themselves before they even get the chance. Who is out there teaching these kids what is appropriate?

People who spend all their time in cyberspace are losing their grip on people-to-people discourse. The workplace is angrier, as people feel more comfortable shooting off offensive e-mails and instant messages than they ever did confronting others personally. People don’t even talk to their office mates, they e-mail them. Speakers bore audiences to tears with power point presentations, which are so easy to produce and are often so inane. They have forgotten how to just talk to us. The fast-pulsed world of Internet gaming has led to speed dating, and Internet break-ups, just as much as it has led to romantic match-making. And now, it’s not just people breaking up by cybermessaging; companies are actually firing personnel that way.

I’m not a communications snob, nor do I generally resist the tides of change. In fact, I’m usually excited by the possibilities tomorrow will present. But I do find myself saddened by the fact that when I visit with the younger members of my family, they are hardly present. They never let go of their cell phones, and are always texting or talking to friends, as if the people actually in their company are an intrusion. And I do find myself annoyed at friends who, when dining or vacationing with me or others, continually attend to their mobile devices instead of the conversation, activity or view. And I still believe it is an invasion of privacy to hold conversations on cell phones when in a confined area with no possibility for others to escape.

Perhaps it is time to work on how to communicate effectively and appropriately in the 21st century. We need parents, teachers and authors to shine a spotlight on the role of communications in interpersonal feelings, gaining trust, taking responsibility, assuring privacy, and paying attention. We need to stop short of dozens of mobile device addiction centers, which are beginning to spring up all over the world to deal with people who have lost the ability to function in the real world without being constantly on line or in the virtual world. Or maybe we don’t. If we go out several decades into the future, the two worlds will likely be far more indistinguishable. I look forward to the exciting world of tomorrow in many ways. But I think I will truly miss people paying genuine attention to other people.