Modern Communications, But Do They Help?

Today we have the fastest and most expansive systems of communication ever known, but do we have peace of mind?
Everything we want to action is immediate, the mobile phone, the Internet, video link, 24 hours a day. There is no respite and no excuse for not knowing or responding, in return the demands made on everyone of us are leading to more stressful situations.
If we take e-mailing, how many people have written things in haste, only to regret them later? Once that send button is pressed your control is gone and the recipient is left in a vacuum, reading your words without the benefit of your tone or facial expression to relate to.
I find that posting an email you always need to carefully re-read those words before sending, as nowadays they can used as documents to substantiate a legal claim.
Words written in innocence can be misinterpreted by a calculating mind, and people are suddenly embroiled in situations out of their control.
Social websites are now springing up everywhere and people are exposing themselves to a world of contact. Faceless names appear on your screen saying they would like to know more about you, and where with a human face-to-face introduction you use your instinct, here you can blindly stumble into the unknown.
Mobile phones mean total access with "private number" appearing only to mask a sales company. You do not know if it is wise to answer or not and yet sometimes it is innocent, a client or friend whose phone number for some reason does not register truly believe we are now more paranoiac then ever because we have no control on who is contacting us.
A woman I had been introduced to recently through a client, acted as a key holder for them and I was showing clients around the property.
Later that day she phoned me and in a nervous voice asked how I had found her number," through the client" I replied," he sent me an email with your details"
You could hear the relief in her voice as she understood, but the worry of how her number had suddenly been accessed by a stranger, had caused her concern.
With the advent of phone calls on the computer, I can call clients all over the world for free and sort out queries and problems, great, but access also means that I can have people contacting me at midnight, the assumption being, that this is acceptable. We now expect everything and everyone to be there no matter what time of day or night, Saturday, Sunday, no problem.
I now have a rule that unless I am working on a Sunday with clients then my phone is off and I will not read emails.
It is so easy to fall into the "I am accessible at all times" syndrome, you feel guilty if not, but frankly are we any better off for these expectations on demand?
They say that too much knowledge is a dangerous thing and just like reading a medical journal, the Internet can also provide us with so much information that can lead to the wrong conclusion .Everyone now is an expert with ability to access all, but is everything that is written and broadcast the truth?
Much of what we have access to is speculation and whilst it is good to challenge and stimulate the mind, when fiction is read as fact we are in dangerous waters.
Your home should be a place of safety and security but now due to the computer, no longer. Everything good and bad comes though those cables and a relaxed day can suddenly be ruined by an email intruding into your life; the mobile phone means a text message in the evening, throwing you back into work and the "do not disturb" button is erased.
In our property business, prospective clients will send us enquiries for information, needing to know more but if they put a mobile number on you know that often it is not a serious enquiry. Why?, because with a mobile phone you are not giving access to your home and so cannot be bombarded by the larger property companies who work on pressure selling.
We are all branded the same, large or small, that fear of direct access is paramount. When I do get to talk with people, I very quickly establish what their needs are and save a lot of wasted information being sent out. You cannot achieve this with an email, so that personal touch is important.
I know a lot of you will be throwing up your hands in despair at this archaic attitude, but just as substituting the calculator for mental arithmetic, are we losing the art of face-to-face encounters in order to hide behind technology?