The Ephemeral Text vs. The Hand-Written Letter

New Yorker Magazine

Heyyy hand-written letter…I’m sry 2 hear of ur passing, but u r just way 2 time consuming & I’m not even sure I remember how 2 print.  U r, I’m afraid, SOL.

Last week, I visited my mom with my orally fixated golden retriever puppy, Maisy. Unprepared with a bone, ball or her favorite dismembered stuffed hedgehog, we headed to my old bedroom in desperate search for a toy - of any sort.  Ultimately, we found success in the dusty-curtained cabinet above my dresser – although not the kind we were looking for. Along with my sister’s mighty super ball collection, a copy of Chaucer's “The Canterbury Tales,” a dental award statue and the tassels from my siblings’ high school graduation caps, we uncovered three shoeboxes filled with old letters, negatives and a few photos. Treasure!

Among the letters – written by family, camp friends, school friends and old boyfriends – were a pile from my dear old dad (I miss him every, single day). Penned in the early 80's when I was a teenager frolicking at sleep-away camp and performing at summer stock theatre, his letters, written on unadorned white paper, were neatly tri-folded into recycled business reply envelopes (“waste not, want not!”).

My eyes welled up as I read his jaunty prose, and I was reminded of his great wit and teasing.

Dear Audrey,

It is too quiet, we miss you but the young swan must try her wings, so!!!  We are looking forward to your letter telling us about the luxurious accomodations, gourmet vittles, heated tile floor in the “Jane,” and the good looking males across the way.”

Hillary Says it Likes She Means it!

Are you excited for #HillarysBigAnnouncement?  Whether or not you are a Democrat or a fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton, she IS the first female front-runner for the biggest office in the land.  

Hillary Rodham Clinton is surely the expert at "Saying it Like She Means it!" and was profiled in my Top 10 Female Role Models and Communicators of 2014.  As a powerful and passionate advocate for girls' and women's rights globally, Clinton has often said that there cannot be true democracy unless women's voices are heard.

Clinton is using social media to announce her candidacy and although she is a 67-year-old baby boomer and a grandmother, you can be sure that she will be capitalizing on all social channels and digital marketing tools to convince us - Gen X, Y, Z, fellow baby boomers and The Greatest Generation" - as to why she deserves to be our next president.  It will be the most digitally-fused election to date.

Speak like a Leader - Digital Daughters on the “Like, Ya Know” Syndrome: Panel Presentation, April 28th!

When it comes to our teenage girls, there is a new verbal fashion trend of epidemic proportions – like, ya know, um, ah, I mean, whatever, ya, I can’t, I can’t even…

In preparation for my upcoming panel presentation on how to “Say it Like You Mean it,” I reached out to my Digital Daughter Ambassadors (DDAs) to ask what they thought about the “like, ya know syndrome” and other verbal habits, their pervasiveness and potential downfalls.  I was curious about the girls’ level of awareness and whether they wished they could get rid of their own involuntary verbal tics.  

An All-Ears Solution to Date Night

My friend Valerie was telling me how she frequently brings a book to dinner with her husband as he’s often distracted by calls, emails and texts. She feels silly sitting at her "table for two” with no one to talk to.  Really?  Is this what date night has come to?

Here’s an addition to restaurant etiquette that I think would do us all a world of good.  The Opérateur de Cellulaire. (Things sound better in French, and they are exemplary when it comes to luxuriating in a leisurely meal).  Yes, in addition to the Maitre d’ who looks after our dining experience, and the coat check person who attends to our jackets and umbrellas, we need a responsible individual to chaperon our precious cell phones.  

Give Them Roots, Wings and Virtual “Busy Signals” – The Greatest Generation on the App Generation

What does The Greatest Generation think of the App Generation? 

Upon surveying her friends, my very wise 80-year-old mom explained that when it comes to social media and cell phones, there is a wide range of understanding, but almost a unanimous opinion…they are concerned.  

 

We may giggle along with eSurance’s commercial where to save time, Grandma Beatrice literally posts her vacation photos “on her wall.”   But there is some brilliant truth, and several layers of insight, when her friend declares, “That’s not how it works.  That’s not how any of this works!”

How does it all work?  Or, is the better question, “Is it all working?”  When it comes to parenting and texting, my mother is especially concerned. 

“Why do Amanda and Jake need to text you from school with every little thing?  How are they suppose to make any of their own decisions when they are wirelessly tethered to you?”

We all grew up in the age of corded phones, telephone booths, busy signals and collect calls.  If we needed our parents, we could connect, but it took some effort and we often had to wait it out.  But, now our text-messaging enabled smartphones offer instant gratification.  And, knowing that our teens have a phone, literally in their back pockets, alleviates anxiety for both parents and kids.

No doubt, we are living through a sociolinguistic transformation brought on by the ubiquitous Internet.  Not just a media culture shift (radio, TV, computer, Smartphone), but also a communications culture shift where the majority of us are texting junkies, and use hash tags and smiley faces to communicate.  With our digital natives as the experts at putting all of these new communications tools into practice, we are, fortunately or unfortunately, compelled to follow.

Celebrity Speak's Contagious Influence, Like, Ya' Know?: Three Excerpted Interviews with Zooey Deschanel, Lena Dunham, and Caroline Kennedy

It should be a party drinking game. Take a drink when you hear a celebrity say “like,” “ya’ know,” or “I can’t even!”

Turns out, the same celebrity role models that influence the way we look and act, also influence the way we speak.  Even those we admire most are riddled with verbal crutches – like, um, ya' know, whatever, ah, so, I mean, I can’t even!

These disfluencies are contagious and most everyone I know in Generation X, Y and Z is guilty of the "like, ya' know" syndrome. But, in order to present our best selves, we should speak to mpress.  

With this is mind, here are three excerpted interviews with Zooey Deschanel, Lena Dunham and Caroline Kennedy.

Zooey Deschanel

I love singer/songwriter and “New Girl” actress Zooey Deschanel, but this interview made me think, maybe she should be renamed the “Like Girl”?

Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 12, 2011, on writing the theme song to “New Girl.” 

There were theme songs I had like in mind as like inspiration, like, I love the theme from Welcome Back, Kotter. John Sebastian wrote that, from The Lovin' Spoonful. I really like love that sound, so I like wanted something upbeat that really felt like a theme song. Like the theme song from Mary Tyler Moore felt really like upbeat and like gets you ready for a show about someone who is um ya’ know taking on a um like a new um life.  So, um so yeah, so that a was basically my ah, my inspiration, musically, um I wanted something uplifting and then when we went in to produce it, we sort of thought like we wanted to have like a Lovin’ Spoonful type of feel to the production, so ya…

Growing Up Female & Social - Part II: What Teens Wish We Understood

Our parents had it so easy…a letter was theirs to be sneakily read, a phone call, to be eavesdropped.  But we live in a world of pinging secret text messages. Codes, acronyms and apps never to be translated – or even known.  It’s another shift.  A new vocabulary with apps that are missing vowels (tumblr), and acronyms that are meant to leave us out of the story (PIR: Parent in Room).

Where is Benedict Cumberbatch (a.k.a. Sherlock, Alan Turing) when you need him?

Welcome to the new reality.  But what feels like a tidal shift to us, is just a new software update for our teens.

When I bring up teens and social media with my friends, we share the eye roll; the heavy sign; the shaking of the head.  And, inevitably, one of us gives voice to the old lament – the refrain of generations past, “What’s to become of kids today?”

In this, “Growing Up Female and Social - Part II,” I reveal my Digital Daughter Ambassadors answers to what they think we don’t get about social media and what they would like us to know.