At the end of a long day it is hard to get me to react to very much.  But I found myself laughing out loud at a recent Verizon commercial.  In it, a group of office mates scream at each other across the room they all share in text messaging shorthand.  The all too familiar “LOLs,”and  “LMAOs” are punctuated, at the end, with “semi-colon end parenthesis,” the cyber smile.  This is a verbal graphic of what has now been coined the “emoticon” – a visual representation, through type or text, of human emotion.  Sounds robotic, doesn’t it?  But maybe that’s just me.

Ok, I do it too - I text-talk in code and, when pressed, I will admit to sending those weird little squiggly things in emails.  “How r u?  I m k” “LOL” “;)” etc. etc.  I do it because I just don’t have time and everybody else does it now.  It actually even looks a bit weird to type out and text someone a full sentence.   My 8 year old is texting from my phone right now and she does it too.  Then I see half words in her homework.  Hmmm…

Raise your hand if you work with someone who:  a) texts constantly; b) spends several hours a day on their Facebook page; c) has had a cyber affair; or d) all of the above. OK – now raise your hand if someone in your family or a very close friend does any of the above.

A married mommy friend confided to me that she is being hotly pursued by a “very married” high school classmate she hasn’t seen in over 20 years, who found her on Facebook.  He lives in Virginia, they will probably never see each other face to face and she is in a reasonably stable, long-term marriage. 

“I was never really all that interested in him back then, so why is this so… so…seductive?” she asked.  “Because you’ll never actually have to meet him.”  I replied.  “Neither of you really wants to leave your marriage and this is easy.”  “That’s kind of creepy,” she said, shaking her head.  “I don’t know what to do.  Am I a terrible person for even entertaining this?” 

My friend is one of the kindest, most ethical people I know.  I couldn’t judge her, wouldn’t judge her.  Because I’ve been there myself and have been tempted, despite my best, most honorable intentions.   Verbally seduced, and drawn in on the phone, or the computer by an old friend or a new friend just wanting someone to chat with… or maybe more?  People from different cities or different states that will remain safely far away and yet oh sooo close by, in web-erland.  The oldest story in the books, re-emerging with a new, user-friendly cyber-twist.  I myself have dodged the fatal bullet but have to ask myself why it was it so hard to resist?

My friend shared another similar story with me about a friend of hers and I could add a few more of my own. At this point there are enough of these stories floating around that one might even consider it a trend, the next big “thing.”  There is even a website, dedicated to “hooking up” married people online for not only extra-marital sex but an array of other services, including cyber and phone sex.  Have we no shame left whatsoever?  And don’t we even care if our partner is in the same room?  To look for love that can’t be consummated in person?  I don’t get it.  But I do understand. 

Maybe there is something else at play here.  In an age where we only half speak to each other, are we being drawn in to an elaborate game of attraction-avoidance that has been so aided and abetted by the ease of Internet deception that it has become second nature?  And when texting takes the place of talking, and people are “just too busy” to meet – even cheat, face to face, what does that mean?  Is it simply a fool’s paradise of impossibly convenient fantasy love?  Now that is a sad state of affairs.

With the click of a mouse we can reach, locate and find each other in an instant.  It has opened pathways previously unthinkable and allowed this generation access to the world.  But must we lose our humanity, our ability to “touch” each other as a result?  Are we becoming “emoticons”?  Because, in addition to compromising our ability to be present in relationships or work through conflict, when we habitually reduce language to a few isolated letters, strung together without structure or thought, we rob ourselves of the power language and literature offers us to decode and navigate our human experience.  To self-reflect.  We create a dangerously isolated ghost life.  And then, when we can no longer find a way to love each other face to face and our kids walk around glued to a cell phone, whose responsibility is that?

I would argue that, the more we look to technology for comfort, and as we fall further and further into our Facebook pages for company, this becomes more than just a fad with some unexpected consequences.  It signals the breakdown of human interaction and a serious emotional health and security issue for the New Global Family.