Ray Kroc acquired McDonald’s in 1961, but it was years before large numbers of people started understanding the dangers of consuming too much quick, cheap, and easy food. Eventually, the indisputable evidence began appearing in waistlines and arteries across the nation.
The latest quick, cheap, and easy consumption dilemma spreading throughout the land is communication. Advances in digital technology have enabled remarkable—make that revolutionary—changes in the ways we can and do talk to each other. We have access to more information and to more people than ever before.
Many of the changes brought forth by the digital communication revolution have been enormously positive, allowing billions of people around the globe to talk to each other. But just as cheaper and more convenient food encouraged us to eat more of it, so too is quick, cheap, and easy communication nudging us away from deliberate dialog and toward expedient messaging. We let our calls go to voicemail, and respond to the message with a text. We send an email to Joe in accounting instead of walking down the hall for a face-to-face conversation. We engage in superficial chats with distant acquaintances on Facebook instead of having a long-overdue conversation about finances or family with our spouse. And so on.
There’s no reason we can’t enjoy the benefits of our new and expedient communication technologies, and also retain our ability to communicate slowly and meaningfully. But eating fast food and sending quick, cheap, and easy messages both require an overarching mindset of moderation to ward off the negative consequences that come with overindulgence. And therein lies the problem.
Moderation is precisely what’s missing in our current communication environment. Hyper-communication is the norm today, the equivalent of a 24/7 fast food diet. Hyper-communication is squeezing out the vital space where thoughtful, reflective, and deliberate conversations used to occur.
Let’s not turn our backs on the remarkable new ways we can talk to each other. Expedient communication and deliberate communication can coexist peacefully. All we need to do is rebalance our conversational diet to ensure that thoughtful and meaningful communication remains the foundation of our communication pyramid. Quick, cheap, and easy communication has indisputable benefits—like being quick, cheap, and easy. But expedient communication does not nurture the deep and rich connections that we instinctively crave. This dislocation explains why it is possible to send dozens of emails and surf the Internet for hours, and yet still feel strangely isolated. Connectivity does not guarantee connection.
It’s beginning to smell a lot like McNuggets everywhere we go. Without a little self-imposed moderation on our hyper-communicating ways, we are in danger of becoming digitally imprisoned by the very devices that were supposed to set us free.