Recently in the Boston Globe, columnist Ellen Goodman discusses the pitfalls of becoming a self-serve society, finally drawing the line when her husband wants to try a restaurant where you cook your own food.

“If I want to cook my own food,” Goodman quips, “I’ll eat at home.”

In “Self-serve and save,” (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/07/18/self_serve_and_slave/) Goodman continues: “Until then, I had drifted along with the do-it-yourself economy. I bused my own lunch trays. I booked my own movie tickets. I checked myself in at hotel kiosks. I even succumbed when an upscale seafood restaurant expected me to swipe my credit card through a handheld computer as if I were in a supermarket.”

The self-serve society we live in is not only to save corporate America money, as Goodman points out (among other things), but it also feeds into a sense of urgency we have created for ourselves. Don’t want to wait on line? Check out your own groceries at the supermarket. Don’t want to be placed on hold? Book your own reservations. Immediate? Yes. Better? Not necessarily.

Take communications, for example. The same sense of pervasive urgency drives how we communicate with our families, co-workers, and friends. We instant message, email, blog, and Twitter. Cell phones have practically become an extension of our anatomy. If we accidently leave a cell phone behind, it throws us into a state of panic. We can’t be reached!

Even words are abbreviated and common phrases have become acronyms. Do we really save time over a 24-hour period by using abbreviations? What does this say for the English language, or, for the sake of clarity?

Or, for the sake of relationships? The perceived miscommunication is if we don’t get an immediate response then something is wrong. “Did they not get the message?” “Do they not agree with my idea and don’t want to tell me?” “Did they even read it?” “Why haven’t they gotten back to me?” Suddenly we are filled with self-doubt, wondering if we should send another email. We forget it’s only been an hour since the last one was sent.

In this era of immediate and global communications, everything has to be now. While a few clicks and the “send” button can have its benefits, the growing technology of online tools can cut both ways. We have spell-check, but do we really know how to spell? We have facilitated an expectation that is becoming increasingly difficult to live up to. What does this say for future generations?

The irony, of course, is that we’re communicating faster yet having less time to get everything done, and we’re having less time to ourselves. We can only vacation in a hotel that’s wireless and stay in a geographic area that has acceptable cell phone service.

Remember, it’s summertime. Do we ever –- really — get away from it all?

Let me know what you think. ASAP.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.