IMHO......

Dear World,
        Has it ever occurred to you how bad we have grown at the art of entertaining ourselves? We must have comedians, we must have television, we must have movies, and ipods and ipads and iknow not what else. We must have thousands of friends on social networking sites and we must let them know exactly what we think at the exact moment we think it. It is no longer good enough that we can send a letter without a stamp via email--no, we must hear the friend's reply (often senseless enough) immediately, and thus instant messaging, chat, and other things were created.
All these technological advances are great boons to our entertainment--I like nothing better than to get on the computer of an evening and chat with my best friends. But I wonder if these advances are as great a boon to our social skills and--perish the thought--our intelligence?
And I'm not the only one who has noticed it. Haven't you seen the little picture going around the internet?

"My Smart-phone made me Stupid."

We've all seen it--those groups of laughing, happy, congenial friends who walk into a restaurant, stare at one another solemnly for a moment, pull out their gadgets, and begin to text across, around, about, before, behind, below the table. I may be a little behind on the technology of the day, and I don't have free texts on my phone,  but I've found my tongue to be a bit quicker in conversation than my fingers could ever be.
My friends and I often lament the lack of real wit in today's conversations, and the general idea seems to be that there are just not enough opportunities. I would wonder, though, if we wasted less wit on making up the perfect Facebook status and instead put that brain-power into making clever conversation, if we'd all be a bit more charming.
Just imagine the wittiest duos that you've ever heard of...Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet come immediately to mind for me. It makes me cringe to think what some of their conversations might look like per today's conveniences:

Darcy: "Do you text as a general rule while dancing?"

Lizzy: "Yes." (pulls out her phone.) "I prefer to be unsociable and taciturn. Makes it all so much more agreeable, don't you think?"

Darcy: "ROFL."

Major cringing going on over here. That is so hideous. I know it's an extreme example but dear World, don't you agree? Our ability to make conversation seems to be languishing in the annals of texting language. (Not to mention our ability to spell properly which subject I will not even broach.) Just try it, I beg of you. Put yourself out to say one clever thing a day, and you may soon find your intelligence is not so impaired as that of your general acquaintance.
                                
Ever Yours,