HighTech Touch

I saw an item on the news the other night about the increase of young children with cell phones. One of the parents commented that they want the phone for their child so they can stay in touch. We have reached an interesting time when we want and expect to be able to have instant connections with whoever we want to be in touch with. It is hard to go anyplace where there aren't people on cell phones, answering cell phones, dialing on cell phones, texting on cell phones.

Back in 1982 just as the possibility of computers and the household use of high tech was beginning to be a possibility, John Naisbitt wrote a book called Megatrends. In it he proposed that as we become more and more high tech we are going to need more and more high touch in our lives. The "coldness" of high tech would push us into that need of the personal and the warmth of relationships.

Keeping connections is what cell phones have become about. We are hungry for relationships. Or more to the point, we are created, I am sure, to be in relationship with others. We are not meant to be lone creatures. We live and react in community. But the overwhelming high tech around us can make us feel disconnected. Hence the popularity of cell phones, even to the point of people giving up land lines.

But every now and then I run into someone who will still say, "But I don't want to be that available all the time." No one says you have to answer the phone every time in rings. But you can answer the phone when you want to talk to someone.

Several years ago, when my daughter went to Spain to stay for a school year, the most difficult part for me was those hours she was on the plane heading there. She was out of touch with us for the first time in her life. Completely out of touch. As soon as she landed, she called us to let us know she was safe. Today we take that ability to touch for granted. Thirty-eight years ago I went to Europe for the summer. My aunt- my guardian- had no idea I arrived safely until she got a post card from me a week to 10 days later.

Yes, our high-tech world has given us the need for high touch. And much to our surprise it is the very technology that gave us the need that can also help provide it.