are we losing the art of face to face conversation.. I fear for us at times..?

[Best Guesser]

No. I think that the occurrence is diminished, but the need for actual face to face conversation will never go away.

I work in the Industrial Maintenance field. We have had walkie-talkies for decades, and they are very useful. But I find that when more information is needed to be exchanged quickly, nothing beats face to face.

I think we are all just fortunate to have so many options available to us now. Incidentally, I do use FB to stay connected to friends and family, but actually quit carrying a cell phone last year. I don't often miss it either.

In my opinion, these are the ways and effectiveness of communication, in order of effectiveness.

1 - Face to Face. Fastest and usually the most accurate (can be uncomfortable to some when certain types of information must be exchanged).

2- Telephone voice conversation. Still very accurate, without the benefit of seeing the other persons facial expressions or knowing when you have their undivided attention.

3- Two-way radio conversation. Fairly accurate, close to telephone quality, with no privacy.

4- Instant message. Very accurate depending on the literacy of the sender. More time consuming for information exchange.

5- e-mail. Again, accuracy completely dependent on the literacy of the sender. Much more time consuming.

6- Text. Communication is diminished, too many text shorthand, acronyms, abbreviations and chances of misunderstandings. Cumbersome and time consuming depending on how well the two communicators know and understand each other to begin with.

7- Snail mail. Accuracy completely dependent on the literacy of the sender. Much, much more time consuming and cost prohibitive.

8- American Sign Language (ASL) and semaphore. Most people don’t know how to sign nor understand sign language. Only accurate under some circumstances.

If people ignore me to do ANYTHING, I just walk away. If they don't want me to, and stop me, I explain that I thought they were too busy to talk (to me). They get the hint quickly.