Having spent a couple of minutes perusing one of my favorite places on the interweb, I happened upon an interesting article that discusses how digital communication is killing the art of face-to-face conversation.  Hmmmm- think about it, how many times do you email or IM people who sit in the same office as you when you could easily get up and walk over to them and convey the same message personally?  I do it all the time, have I just become extremely lazy or have I just found a way to communicate that fits me better?

But seriously will behavior like this really lead to the death of face-to-face conversations?  My parents have stuck with their tried and tested methods of communication- snail mail, the phone, and in person conversations to communicate with people in their lives.  Me on the other hand- I use Facebook, text, email, my mobile, IM, and yes face-to-face in my conversations nearly every day but ask me where to get a stamp and mail a letter and there is a fair chance I will glaze over.  So maybe it's not face-to-face conversation that's in danger but other legacy forms of communication.  It always shocks me when someone pulls out a pager- I mean, how does one even send a message to someone on a pager?

There is a nice article over at 'The Marketing Student' that compares the communication methods of boomers vs Gen X-ers vs Gen Y-ers which is worth a look even if only to confirm what we thought we already knew...It goes as far as to suggest that Gen Y-ers consider only the most urgent situations require face-to-face communication.  

I'd like to think that I will always retain the art of face-to-face conversation and will from time to time make use tools that suit the situation better.  But I think I remember feeling the same way about the art of writing letters, and look where that got me.