The art of visiting

I haven't spent much time on my computer in the past month. It is directly related to spending more time with my husband now that we're both home all day. While my husband and I bond and connect in this unusual time together, I have fallen out of the habit of communicating with others. This is directly related to spending less time on the computer. I initially thought that I'd become callous towards the needs of my friends and my family but realised that I had actually just become techno lazy. It lead me to wonder:

how much quality time do we have to spend on the computer in order to stay in touch with those we care about?

a lot it would seem. My daily 10 minutes has left me completely out of the loop. The children of my dearest friends are growing up via blogs and facebook photo albums. My friends' moods and concerns are more clearly explained in their facebook status updates than you could garner from a 2hr coffee date. And this lead me to further explore the idea that our generation has lost the art of visiting. We find it simpler (and safer) to update our twitter and facebook accounts with our hopes and joys and frustrations rather than speaking in person. I have had friendships that involve in depth emails but have not been able to pass the "small talk" barrier when in person. Also, we are too busy to sit down and give someone our time which leads to constantly cramming visits into slots otherwise labelled "grocery shopping", "babysitting", "cleaning" and even "eating". And even then, our cell phones don't stop buzzing with text messages, BBMs and phone calls.

At the risk of being misunderstood, I am not referring to a leisurely lunch or dinner spent with others. Joyful, relaxed socialisation is not only brilliant fun, but very healthy. However, my generation does seem to have missed the boat on a very important aspect to the whole relationship thing. Time. You cannot effectively build on any relationship without putting in the time.

For me, it means computer time. Techno time. Managing time. Sacrificing husband time. However, if I want to know about my friend's lives and their children's development I'll have to spend the time clicking through online photo albums, reading and commenting on the captions. If I want to be able to stay in touch with friends and family (regardless of their location - this even applies to my father who lives 15 minutes away), I have to take the time to follow their interests online, email frequently, be available for Skype chats.

Yes, it is a shame that we've lost the delicate, but fulfilling practice of visiting. I do think that my generation suffers from "too little, never enough" which leads directly to bending to the social pressure to be everything all at the same time - socialite, spouse, friend, family, professional, running partner, parent...and the list goes on. However, this is how society has changed. My generation will continue to live the rat race because we've been told that we can, that its fun, that we should. So my choices are few. I love my friends, my family. Thus, I forgo the joy of sitting with another at home, drinking tea, enjoying the company unhurriedly and without distraction, and dedicate myself to spending more time online, starting with this blog.