Cliff Richard sang “It's so funny how we don't talk anymore” way back in 1983. That was 30 years ago. Now obviously his lyrics were in the form of
a lament on the breakdown of a relationship but today we can put it in the
context of life in general.
So many of us have laptops or tablets on
our desks; in our home offices; beside the bed and we use those to communicate
with colleagues, friends and family. We
write, rather than speak.
Some of us Skype when we can, so as to see
relatives and friends and how the children/grand children are growing.
I work with young people, a lot of young
people, mostly under the age of 25. They
are bright and clever and can be working on 3-5 electronic devices at one
time. My job is to manage their
accommodation and see to their immediate needs and challenges.
What saddens but also humours me at times,
is how poorly they communicate. They
rarely start with a greeting. Have plugs in their ears with music so loud I can
hear it and struggle to make a request
that doesn’t require several questions to find out exactly what they want.
Of course, they also have their smart
phones in their hands and look at them as if they will give divine
inspiration. I am pretty sure they don’t
have an app on there that tells them how to ask for the maintenance man to come
and look at their stove top!!!
I often ask young people to talk to me,
tell me a bit about yourself and they struggle to respond. I tease out of them every bit of information
to help me to help them.
We need to practice the Art of Conversation
with our young people. Teach them how to
tell the stories of their day, week or month in a way that is interesting and
makes us want to listen. We need to help
them learn to converse and communicate verbally.
When they go for that job interview their
plugs in their ears and smart phones are not going to help them. They are going to have to talk to their
interviewer.
Conversation has become
the rarest of Art forms that needs to be returned to the people.
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