Naivety

Is your head in the "cloud"?

The whole world is now at your fingertips. Every single bit of recorded information, every person you've ever met, and even others that you haven't, are accessible through the internet. 

Now that should open us up and expose us to more and more people and things. However the opposite seems to be true. Look to any place where there is a gathering of people and you'll see most people looking at some sort of screen. We lock ourselves away into our virtual world and communicate people more through social media, email and text than we do any other way. 

Now don't get me wrong, I love technology! I'm a total, self-confessed geek. But these tools to help us really have taken over our lives. We spend so much of our time looking down at our screens and much less time looking up and around at the world and the people around us. We have become totally naive to what is going on immediately around us, because what is happening else where is just as accessible. 

I find this more than anywhere at work. Technology has transformed sales. I can call a company and be told the boss is out, or in a meeting, only to have them instantly reply to an email or linkedin message. People I already have a relationship with would rather spend hours discussing things that we could resolve in a 5 minute phone call. Even when I see people face to face at networking, they ask me to send them and email, rather than ask me the questions they have there and then. I find that crazy. 

The real, tangible interpersonal relationships that we forge in life are so much more valid and valuable to our lives. We need people, real people to live. We need to spend actual physical time with people to learn and develop from them and with them. We need to lift our heads up, open our very square eyes and stop being so naive to the real world around us.