Facebook vs Flirting

I have a teenage son and I'm absolutely dumbstruck by how social interactions have changed since I was his age.  Gone are the days of plotting and scheming to get to see the object of your desire, gone are hushed phone calls behind bedroom doors, gone are the tongue-tied conversations between two young people.  


You see, modern technology has robbed our teenagers of all of that. Today, young people have unlimited access to each other by electronic means - social networking, texting and email.  They don't get to long for each other or miss each other's company because the other one is only ever a few keystrokes away.


I think they've been robbed.  I remember the excitement of waiting for the phone to ring each day when my boyfriend would call, being yelled at by my parents for the excessive phone bill and the hushed giggling while he hid from his parents' ears too.  My children will never know how that feels.  They will never know the sheer skin-tingling delight of flirting and longing.  


Electronic communication has a sense of safety to it because it's much easier to write something in a text message or email than to say those words aloud when you're an unsure teenager.  The flip side of this is that cyber-bullying and intimidation is rife.  Hurting each other's feelings is that much easier to do because you don't have to be brave and say the words to a human face.  An electronic screen doesn't cry or crumble when a heart is slowly breaking.  It feels no pain at confidence shattered.


How very sad.