Can I Get Some Human Interaction Please?

Critical Thinking

Comparison and Contrast Essay

"Can I Get Some Human Interaction Please?"

How many times have you said please or thank you lately? Do we really even have to talk to anyone any more? Reading and writing may still be necessary skills, but is communicating with one another in even some of the most basic day-to-day activities becoming a lost art? I guess it all depends on how you want to look at it. You could say that, because of some technological advances, our lives are easier and more efficient. Yet, in this day and age, and with self-service technology sprouting up in areas we would have never expected a decade ago, are all these advances hurting us as a society?

Let's take a look at what I like to call the "automated lifestyle." For example, you need some money. There are automated teller machines that can handle almost all your banking needs seemingly wherever you turn. Is that bill almost past due? If you don't mind dealing with a pre-recorded voice, it will lead you into a maze of questions through which you navigate by using the numbers from your touchtone telephone. Bills can be paid and answers to general service questions can be found. You can buy movie tickets, subway tokens, stamps, pre-paid phone cards, plane tickets, and even pay for parking at remote kiosks without actually interacting with another person. Supermarkets and some large home supply stores supply do-it-yourself checkout lanes where you can scan and bag your own items. Automated voice messaging services, or answering machines, have been around for some time now. However, it seems like people expect, more times than not, to leave a message rather than actually talk to the person or business they're trying to get in touch with. Well, what's the problem with all this?