You’re On Mute…

At a recent ZOOM meeting, one of my administrators mentioned that the most used phrase in 2020 was probably, “You’re on mute.” I laughed at that. Whether it’s true or not, it certainly sums up the current face of communication.

In the past five to six weeks, since the beginning of 2021, I have been in 25 ZOOM meetings. All I needed to do was look back at my calendar and count. Most were for my job as a teacher consultant. A few were in my capacity as the president of InScribe Christian Writers’ Fellowship. Some were with my church, either pre-church prayer meetings or Bible Studies.

This does not include the 6 telephone appointments I had with doctors and others, nor the private video chats with family and friends using FB or Marco Polo. Life has changed since Covid. What used to be occasional is now the norm, and frankly, I don’t see it going away. The convenience and immediacy of meeting online now that more people are getting used to it, are here to stay.

However, the amount of screen time has definitely increased, and for someone who does most of their work online anyway, both in my capacity as a teacher and as a writer, I do long to just shut off the devices… As someone who watched the Jestons and Star Trek when I was a kid, it smacks of Science Fiction, yet here we are. It’s actually very convenient, but as I said, sometimes one can get too much of a good thing.

What are your thoughts on how technology has changed the way we communicate?