Are We Really an Age of Communication?

It's ironic to me that we call the modern era the Age of Communication. Why is that you ask? One obvious example. A lack of communication is listed as the leading cause of breakdowns in marriages and relationships. Kind of ironic to call the current age the age of communication when our current era has a higher divorce rate than has ever been before? I came across an interesting quote awhile back that I think explains this phenomena very well. "The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?" That quote is more than 3000 years old, but I think it sums up our current age of communication perfectly.

It struck me, because it reminded me a great deal of our modern era. Though in the current age, communication is everywhere, emails, texts, Facebook, and Twitter, conversation that's actually meaningful seems to have almost completely set sail. Our Age of Communication is something like a deafening roar, drowning away the rare and honest whispers of wisdom that cannot compete with the raging roar of everything else that seeks our attention. I think our Age of Communication is a sham an age which knows fewer words, yet preaches them all the louder in order to make up for it, an age that has nothing new to contribute, but speaks the same dribble all the louder just to make up for it. I don't know, maybe I'm being too hard on us.

The Age of Communication seems very close to another modern phenomenon: ambient light. There's a little hill out by my home that I often sit on at night to watch the twinkling, distant city below. There it sits, enshrouded in a glow of low-level brightness pervading all the night world. Though the ambient light is good for those traveling through the city, those wishing to gaze upward at the stars beyond are hindered and unable to take in the manifold array of tiny lights.

The Age of Communication strikes me as the same. Even though humanity communicates more now than it ever has before, it hasn't yet learned how to make the bulk of its communications meaningful, and our words often get lost in the vast humdrum of mediocrity. And because of our constant communications with those around us, we never perceive what a treasure real communication is, living a life blind to the vast array of twinkling thoughts that lies just overhead.

Thanks for reading about Ben's view of the age of communication. If you want to read more, check out his blog Things I've Learned While Roaming the Earth.

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