As Much as I Enjoy Blogging and Email and Facebook and Chatting and Texting . . .

All of that supplements actual relationships, doesn't replace them, and I hate online classes and distance learning. I want my education face-to-face because that is the most effective and efficient way to communicate. This article doesn't say it all, but it makes some good points. I've grabbed the main points and a key quote for each, but read the whole thing if you like this much.

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable

#1. We don't have enough annoying strangers in our lives.

As long as you have needs, you'll have to deal with people you can't stand from time to time. We're losing that skill, the one that lets us deal with strangers and tolerate their shrill voices and clunky senses of humor and body odor and squeaky shoes.

#2. We don't have enough annoying friends, either.

After you get over that first irritation, after you shed your shell of "they listen to different music because they wouldn't understand mine" superiority, there's a sort of comfort in needing other people and being needed on a level beyond common interests. It turns out humans are social animals after all. And that ability to suffer fools, to tolerate annoyance, that's literally the one single thing that allows you to function in a world populated by other people who aren't you. Otherwise, you turn emo. Science has proven it.

#3. Texting is a shitty way to communicate.

So did we really need a study to tell us that more than 40 percent of what you say in an e-mail is misunderstood? Well, they did one anyway.

#4. Online company only makes us lonelier.

When someone speaks to you face-to-face, what percentage of the meaning is actually in the words, as opposed to the body language and tone of voice? Take a guess.

It's 7 percent. The other 93 percent is nonverbal, according to studies. No, I don't know how they arrived at that exact number. They have a machine or something. But we didn't need it. I mean, come on. Most of our humor is sarcasm, and sarcasm is just mismatching the words with the tone. Like my friend's "No, thank you."

You don't wait for a girl to verbally tell you she likes you. It's the sparkle in her eyes, her posture, the way she grabs your head and shoves your face into her boobs.

#5. We don't get criticized enough.

An insult is just someone who hates you making a noise to indicate their hatred. A barking dog. Criticism is someone trying to help you, by telling you something about yourself that you were a little too comfortable not knowing.

#6. We're victims of the Outrage Machine.

There effectively is no "mass media" any more so, where before we disagreed because we saw the same news and interpreted it differently, now we disagree because we're seeing completely different freaking news. When we can't even agree on the basic facts, the differences become irreconcilable. That constant feeling of being at bitter odds with the rest of the world brings with it a tension that just builds and builds.

#7. We feel worthless, because we actually are worth less.

Self-esteem and the ability to like yourself only come after you've done something that makes you likable. You can't bullshit yourself. . . .

You are a social animal and thus you are born with little happiness hormones that are released into your bloodstream when you see a physical benefit to your actions.

Read the whole thing