Steve's Tips for Better Living #5

When I was a boy and watches with calculators on them still seemed high-tech, communication came at a price. If you wanted to call someone, you had to get up and go stand in the kitchen, your conversation broadcast to everyone else in the house. Your only hope for privacy was a “really long cord”™ strung like a tripwire through the house, catching inattentive family members and often ripping the receiver from you hands. Occasionally, some unlucky soul was forced to attempt to untwist the “really long cord” ™ by standing on a chair and allowing the receiver to spin wildly until it had returned to normal. Eventually someone invented a nifty gizmo to rid our lives of the twisted phone cord. The telephone was a high-maintenance piece of equipment, and it took effort to communicate with someone who wasn’t physically present. One had to carefully consider if the information to be communicated was worth the effort involved. Often times, the appropriate course of action was to simply wait and share the information the next time you were physically together.

Today, we have phones that fit in out pocket (sans unsightly bulges), email, Blackberries, Instant Messenger, pagers, flickr, and a host of other effortless ways to communicate with one another. Communication requires no effort and as a result, has no cost. No one has to think before they communicate. Just stubbed your toe? Grab your cell phone and call Uncle Bob. Found a great new dancing hamster animation? Email the link to everyone you know. Got a tip? Put it on your blog. The point is, we no longer have to consider if something is actually worth communicating. Today’s tip for better living is “think before you communicate”. Just because communication has no cost, that doesn’t mean what’s being communicated should have no value.