February 13th 2016 | Julia Becerra

In a recent interview the head of the campaign of one of the Republican candidates, attributed their success in the first primary, to “his team effort to improve personal interaction”.  I found that interesting.

In this new age of technology, in-person interactions are becoming less and less common. Many mourn the loss of in-person contact and are concerned that personal interactions will become obsolete. But do personal interactions necessarily need to be in-person? Text messages, emails, and social media have transformed the definition of personal interaction. It is actually true that personal interaction can be considered simply as a one-on-one direct line of communication. Be it in-person, over the phone, or via email, as long as there is a direct line of communication between two individuals, it is defined as personal interaction; but it is this “THE” personal interaction that makes a personal or business relationship successful?.

Perhaps no.  I think that we can rename that activity to “personal follow up” after an in-person rapport has been established with an individual or a group.  When a person actually do his/her best to continue with an in-person relationship, then it is relevant to enhance the communication using all the available tools, like texts, emails and somewhat. But the effort should be made in keeping a truly in-person contact.

Yes, we live and work on a global economy where the best way to reach other people is via a text message or an email. It is also true that is easier now than ever to communicate globally via phone calls; it is actually cheap and sometimes free with the use of many apps like Whatsapp, Viber or Skype to name just a few.  But who really feel pleased anymore with making a call or talking via a video conference? Who really feels motivated and comfortable meeting someone in person instead of just sending an email? Even when the recipient of the email is sitting within walking distance?

In the world (not long ago) where the technology was not as developed as it is now in the 21^st century, people actually did have the time and the motivation to meet and talk in person.  It did not feel like a difficult task; it felt natural.  Perhaps the job ads from that time did not emphasized as much as they do today, in getting people with “excellent interpersonal skills”. The interpersonal skills at that time were developed since childhood and they were tested daily.  Today our kids are usually involved in texting to others on their cell phones while totally incapable of talking to other kids, while looking at their eyes or reading their facial expressions.

And that is not only our kids, just how many times we have been out for dinner with friends, probably friends we haven’t seen in person for a long time, and we had spent most of the meeting time, with our eyes buried in our cell phones, blackberrys etc, or even worse taking calls, sending texts or checking emails?

Also how many people these days break up via a text message? That is a personal interaction according to the new definition. But is that considered “Effective communication?”  Not to mention the kind of things that are being said via FB or Twitter that somebody will be totally incapable of saying it in person.

So what happened to the interpersonal skills, the life skills that we were taught in our early age to improve so we can communicate well with other people, both individually and in groups?

As much as there is also the time efficiency concept, where a quick question can be answered over a text or a message, it is also true that this is a short term solution; that same time efficiency can become inefficiency when the personal interaction is lost. That is the time when there is no interest in answering a question in a timely matter because the personal touch is lacking.

Yes, I do believe that thanks to the present technology we have more availability of ways to communicate with other people across the globe; I totally take advantage of it to stay in touch with friends and family that live geographically distant. But I do also believe that it is true, there is no substitute for personal interaction, and there is NO excuse for constantly avoiding personal interaction with those people that are within our geographical reach; even more, when they are colleagues, or friends that in one way or another we want to or we are interested in having an excellent communication with.

So yes, technology is cool, but it is also cold.

How frightening is to know that a person could be very well versed in writing emails, very fast with their thumbs in typing text messages and find out that same person is incapable of having an spontaneous conversation or even worse  incapable of effectively interacting in person with another human being?

You guys please tell me.

In the meantime, I am busy having a conversation with an out-of-town college student I just met, while waiting in line to get my ticket to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.