The Return of Hieroglyphics

By Rita

Almost 10 years ago I listened to an interview with a neuro-linguistic professor from Stanford. He suggested that the trend in communication was becoming more restricted to a screen and included less verbal conversation. He predicted the understanding of tonal messages, sarcasm, irony, and double entendres would become more difficult to understand with current and future generations.

On a screen there is very little room for shading and gradation in communication. The nature of a conversation via computer is very binary, very black and white and sometimes just all gray. Have you ever wondered how all the interaction young people conduct through a computer will affect their people skills?

Recently I was in a coffee shop seated near two young men in their twenties. They were occupying two tables and talking to each other very loudly across them. I gathered they were doing some kind of programming work with their code-like language and focused demeanors, but they may have been gaming. Other people in the café began to stare at the clamorous exchange between the young men but the two remained oblivious to the parade of human eyes begging them to turn their volume level down.

The coup de crap, as my friend says when nothing else will do, occurred when one of the guys donned his earphones and proceeded to grow even louder. I finally decided to stand up and approach his friend. I quietly and sincerely asked, “Do you think your friend minds that everyone here can hear every single word he’s saying?” Responding quickly and earnestly he said, “Oh no, he doesn’t mind.” My response was, of course, “We mind!” Shortly afterwards they were using their indoor voices.

With less person-to-person interaction, without tonal nuance and the exchange of physical expression, people may lose necessary tools for verbal communication. For example, how to decide what kind of amplification is appropriate in which setting, or the awareness of others’ reactions to your verbal messages may become mysteries. We could soon be adding emoticons to our spoken word. They might even end up in books and print, like little emotional cues. I can just imagine, “And they lived happily after. :-D” or “And then he died. :-(”

I fear our human interactions will be prompted just like the filming of a TV sitcom. We’ll need instruction on when to laugh and how loudly. And thus hieroglyphics, symbols that served to represent entire objects and ideas, may just have a return. Where else will we find a creative outlet to express emotion?

I’ve got my papyrus and ink ready.