I am concerned about an evolutionary process that will result in the atrophy (weakening and loss of function) of human beings’ vocal cords. We are just at the beginning of an era that will be marked by communication via electronic media at the expense of in person or vocal interaction. The telephone replaced letter writing while the cell phone has essentially taken over the former. Because the cell phone has alphanumeric keys it has now become easier (and cheaper) to text someone than call. I believe that the relative anonymity (can’t see or hear you) of texting contributes to its preferential status. The development of entities like Facebook and Twitter have further escalated this evolutionary change and resulted in a self indulgent reality TV oriented need to share all aspects of one’s life with almost anyone interested.  So as you can see, there is a real possibility that with lessened use, our vocal cords will shrivel up and become a vestigial (unnecessary) body part.

Now that I hope to have garnered your attention, I decided to write this brief paper because of a
more serious concern about the impact of electronic media on future generations. It was not too long ago that families communicated regularly, often around the dinner table or while listening to the radio. With the advent of the television and its distracting capabilities such family patterns began to change. It became easier to watch a game show, sports event or news while sitting at the table for the family meal. There is a wonderful scene from the movie Avalon where several generations of an immigrant family are sitting around their new black and white TV staring at the station’s logo since it was too early for any program to air. What was most striking in this scene was the absence of any dialog for many minutes. I believe that we can trace the deterioration of interpersonal communication to the intrusion of TV.

This now brings us to the 21st century and the social media “revolution.” If you observe any group of individuals you cannot ignore their self centered involvement with their cell phones. There is no verbal interaction, eye contact or even body language suggesting that they are part of a social gathering. This isolationist preoccupation is directly counter to how our brains are programmed. From the earliest caveman/woman times, the human species has been a social animal. Even before the development of language and its use to solve day to day problems, it was the social group structure and interpersonal bonds that allowed for our species’ survival.

What will be the future “payback” resulting from generations of kids raised on cell phones, twitter and Facebook? I fear an erosion of social skills, minimization of interpersonal contact or need for contact and the disappearance of social bonds. We are at risk at becoming a truly egocentric animal without need for social contact and most troubling, the development of a sociopathic style. In the movie WALLe, humankind had had to escape to a space-based habitat after the earth was so trashed and polluted that human existence was not possible. There scenes from this habitat where each human was floating around in their individual zero gravity communication cocoon having no interaction with anything other than their personal entertainment devices! Although a fantasy cartoon movie, let us hope that it does not foretell our future.

It is not too late to manage these changes. As I was writing this paper the American Academy of Pediatrics developed a “family media use plan” [Wall Street Journal, 10/29/13, D1]. These guidelines strongly urged families to have a no-device rule during meals and after bedtime in addition to monitoring the internet and social media sites visited by their children. A 2009 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that for children ages 8 to 18, an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes were spent daily on TV, music, video games and the two-thirds of these individuals had no parental rules on the amount of time spent attending to this media.

Let us hope that the grown-ups who should know better take charge and prevent the potential human nightmare that could result from this media revolution.