Why is it, that with so many means of communication to hand we are bad at keeping in touch with each other?

There are many ways to contact each other in spoken links face to face, mobile telephones, land line telephones, even video links via our computers. Also written links abound with old fashioned handwritten letters, typed letters, text messages and e-mails; that aside, there are books, magazines, and newspapers, paper and electronic varieties!

Our son amuses me with his dependence on the e-mails, mobile phone and texting. To write a thank you note to grandparents, who are not part of his electronic age, is hard work. His hand writing has been described as the scrawl of a drunken spider, so unsurprisingly he likes to type his letters (and the grandparents can at least read it!). However, to then print out his letter and post it using to quote, "snail mail" rather than just e-mail it off into the ether takes him for ever.

Is it that we are overloaded with high speed communication and now cannot cope with the variety of choice? Or is it that we are expected to respond to contact by phone or e-mail at such speed that we haven't got time for other communication? I notice that my husband can come in at the end of the day and then spend an hour or so answering his e-mails and opening his ordinary post. Even the ordinary post seems to generate a huge amount of junk mail and unwanted paper that then goes straight in the recycling box!

I dare to suggest that amid all these ways of reaching each other we are losing the real art of communication. Are we losing the skill of reading each others body language and facial expressions? Are we losing the ability to give each other the time spent with each other which conveys the message that we are important to that person? We hear of "compassion overload" as we become bombarded with others distress and suffering; are we now in a state of communication overload that is now stopping us from responding to each other in more than a superficial way?

We are so quick to exchange e-mail addresses and phone numbers but do we actually get around to giving each other meaningful time in each others' company? Sometimes we can feel overwhelmed by the demands on our time and energy and in my experience there seems a loss of relationship in this sound-bite generation.

Am I brave enough to defy convention and spend time lingering in another's company not trying to cram intense meaning into "quality time" but lingering, enjoying just being together, relaxing with each other, no agenda or time management mandate, just being? - Is that real communication? Are we going to sell the next generation short if we do not pass on the art of real communication and relationship?