Give us smartphone chatter any day

Smartphone communication of the text or video messaging kind gets a lot of bad press. 'People,' critics say, 'have lost the human touch of face-to-face meetings and interactions.' Yes! And for an overwhelmingly large number of people, that's the idea. Once upon a time, 'meeting someone' meant having to wear trousers, braving the heat and rain (and waterlogged streets), and sacrificing your soul to traffic just to say, 'So, how've you been?' Now, we can express the same sentiment without having to run through an existential gauntlet.

Those who lament the death of 'real connection' - yearning for stuff like eye contact, body language and awkward silences - don't gauge the boon of not having to meet people you don't really want to meet without seeming standoff- ish. Texting and videoing skips the fluff. It's the espresso shot of communication - quick, efficient and mildly addictive. We've traded the tyranny of travel for the elegance of the ellipsis. We've replaced the handshake with the 'seen' notification. In doing so, we've reclaimed hours of our lives once lost to death-defying logistics, and yada yada. So, yes, maybe we're less tactile. But we're also less tired, less likely to say, 'Let's meet up soon,' without meaning it. In the grand scheme of evolution, the couch has won. Give us smartphone communication over physical meets any day.