Has technology made us lazy in our relationships?

It's something I've been pondering for a while.

The most notable change in our personal interactions comes by way of time spent either physically with another person or in communicating to them via several means. In the days where you kept physical company with a friend/partner/family member you would be required to uphold a level of conversation and activity where it would be obvious if you waned in attention. But now, we can communicate via text, whereby it takes longer to type a sentence than it does to say it; you get thinking time about your responses without the other person interpreting your expressions and body language.

Essentially you can make a 20 minute verbal conversation last all day (or several days) if you need to when it's conducted via email or chat. And when all else fails, you can be AFK and unavailable to respond! Is it easier to just have a pleasant "Hi" from an sms than having to see someone, go through the spiel of "How was your day? What did you get up to?" But surely this contravenes the idea that with all this fantastic technology available to us, we can share more about ourselves and our lives to a greater audience in less time.

So what does that mean for our concept of sharing information with others? Or how well do we effectively know someone these days? If you spread out how much detail you provide someone over days, weeks, months and years, how much of yourself are you truly letting them see? And then, does this mean we base our relationships on only a small fragment of what we believe the other person to be? - perhaps this is why so many relationships, marriages and associations fall apart, because we believe we know so much about another, and yet we've only just seen a small portion of their true self.



I'm a believer that yes, it generally is easier to communicate in dribs and drabs, but it's not the best way to do it... you may be buying time now, but by elongating the interaction period could very well be wasting that time you've just bought in the long run.

M1 Mentality

No, this has nothing to do with the active firing button on the mouse in game – shame on you geeky lot who immediately thought that! This is a brief reflection on the things I have observed and learned over the last five and a half weeks travelling 65km each way along the Pacific Motorway (M1) between home on the Gold Coast and work at south Brisbane.

*Just because you have half as many wheels doesn’t mean you can go twice as fast! The gall of some motorcycle riders completely overwhelms me at times. They hoon up behind you, zipping between lanes, near oblivious to the cars on the road. But when you indicate to change lanes and they’re just instantaneously near you (thanks to the 140km/h+ they’re obviously doing), they proceed to abuse you because you didn’t notice them. I’m sorry – ninja driving doesn’t give you God-like status to rule the road!

*Apparently you need to slow down on the approach to an exit ramp to inform drives behind you that you’re intending on leaving the M1; an indicator apparently does not do this.

*Never trust a car with pillows/crocheted blankets/hats/tissue boxes or dogs in the back window. Just, don’t.

*Everyone is numerically dyslexic. That 80 sign really says 110 in their eyes. I hope you lot get pinged for it. Twice. In one day. This really does irk me, especially when it’s through a region of road works, because after working on the roads for a few years, you learn that even 40mk/h is bloody fast for a 2 Tonne vehicle to be screaming past you. And whilst you may bitch that “there’s nobody working in the zone so why do we have to slow down?” it’s called infrastructure and unstable conditions – in case you never noticed, those orange and white barriers aren’t normal road features!

*And most importantly of all, my car is really comfortable, cruisy and just right for me! After taking delivery of my new Nissan XTrail back in November, I’ve had a chance to give her a really thorough run in. For a 4 cylinder, 2.5L CVT engine, she has speed with dynamic pick-up, grace, and efficiency all rolled in to one divine soccer-mum-SUV body! I’m currently pulling about 7.5L/100km, and for a 65L tank, that’s showing up to 870km potential per total fill.

Things I learned whilst in Japan

1. You will learn to become engrossed in the advertising on trains
2. For a flat city, you're always walking up stairs
3. Bikes are not your friend... they are the true Ninjas of the city
4. Where there's a shadow, it's freaking cold
5. Hot means hot
6. As polite as the culture may seem, the locals will still laugh at you when you say words in their complete and formal way
7. Japanese love the French - they haven't realised why the rest of the world hates the French, obviously
8. Taxi's will make you think you're in a 1960's timewarp
9. You're never too young to wear false eyelashes
10. For a country which makes things smaller and smaller for the rest of the world, they all still use large flip mobile phones
11. This country is permanently buzzing on caffeine
12. Push your way through
13. Even old people get told to sit their arses down in Disneyland
14. You shouldn't worry about a warm toilet seat
15. You can congregate wherever you like, even if it's in the middle of the road
16. Cigarettes are horrid - they smoke worse than a clapped out '79 Torana here, especially in restaurants, but not while walking down the street
17. You will always feel like you're going against the crowd
18. There's no such thing as the ground floor.. it all starts at 1

Day 10 summary

Tuesday 10 November:
Quiet, easy day. Spent it in Ginza, not quite resisting the shopping! Caught up on some of the food delights in Matsuya that I've been eyeing off for days. Went back to the quaint chopstick shop from last night to treat myself to a specia pair just for myself - I realised I'd bought beautiful sets for everyone else but not myself! Discovered more of the back streets, lined with bars and restaurants and who-knows-whats hidden behind frosted glass and japanese character painted curtains.

I've packed everything away, ready for checkout tomorrow. My bag isn't overflowing, surprisingly, and once again will not be near the weight limit for luggage. Off to the pub for dinner soon, then contemplating a long night of sleep tonight because we have to check out of the hotel at 10am tomorrow, and bumble around until 3:30pm when we get the airport limousine bus back to Narita airport. It's a 90 minute journey. Our flight leaves at 8:25pm and I'm hoping I'll be able to get some sleep on the plane at least - I have a strip of nurofen plus at the ready to help me pass out! Land back on the Gold Coast at 7am Thursday.