Always ‘Talking’: When Three Days Without a Word is an Eternity

For a gen­er­a­tion accus­tomed to near-instan­ta­neous keep­ing in touch, a gen­er­a­tion of peers are per­fect­ly com­fort­able with face-to-face encoun­ters tak­ing a back­seat to cyber contact.

Christi­na Rainie had been try­ing to reach her friend for three days. For some rea­son, he was­n’t respond­ing to her wire­less text mes­sages, online instant mes­sages, or cell phone calls.

When the pair of Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia fresh­men final­ly did make con­tact on the fourth day, they argued — heat­ed cell phone exchanges inter­spersed with apolo­getic text messages.

A frus­trat­ed Rainie decid­ed she no longer want­ed him to be her date for the upcom­ing soror­i­ty dance.

“Three days? It’s like eter­ni­ty!” she explained.