Road rage has become a common behavior in the modern age and if we have not personally encountered it, we have seen it played out on news stories. What would Henry Ford say now? Would he still believe that he had contributed something for the overall good of humankind?
Would Alexander Graham Bell be astonished at our modern forms of communication that require no eye contact and therefore; no incentive to tell the truth? The means of communication has evolved from telephone conversations, to emails, to text messaging and for those who desire face to face contact; we have Skype and other video chat programs. Emailing and texting may have come about in response to the extreme annoyance we feel when having to make a call to a large business entity. “Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed…press 1 for…, press 2 for …, press 3 for … and so on; or I’m sorry…” You pressed the wrong number and you have to start all over again, or you reach a recording telling you your wait time is 40 minutes, or you reach a voice mail and the person you need to speak with is out of the office. When you finally reach a real person you are told that she cannot help you, so you are given a new number with a whole new set of options. Who has not encountered a similar scenario on at least one occasion? How many phones have been slammed against the wall, angry bursts of expletives ringing in the ears of those nearby? The only reason we don’t hear about phone rage, is that there are few others around to witness it. Of course, prior to talking to a real person, you will hear, “This call may be recorded.”
The internet is not without its own frustrations. High speed internet has replaced the slow, dial-up connections of twenty years ago, but anytime that you think you are going to do one quick thing, three hours later, if you have not solved the unexpected glitch you ran into, you will simply walk away from your computer. Then there are the numerous passwords and new means by which we can thwart hackers, which often require updating, changing passwords, etc. They call this the age of communication, but it is shallow, at best. Sometimes, I long for the old times when people could simply sit down and have a conversation or write a long, heartfelt letter to a friend – long before the craziness and the rage became normal.
