By: Lindsay Hogg

Has Modern Day Technology Made Things Better or Worse?

You meet so many amazing people traveling, and some sucky ones, but mostly great new friends. It’s almost like the end of a extended date when u part ways. Do I ask them for their email? Add them to Facebook? Is that too forward? Will they even talk to me again? What if I smell bad when we hug goodbye?

Alas, majority of the time, you become Facebook buddies. In fact, out of courtesy, you become Facebook buddies with a lot of people you only spent a few hours with. Eventually these people will become a distant memory. I often forget about people I met until I’m tagged in a photo with them or see their status update and ask myself “Who the f%$# is that?… Ohhhhh… that guy I had beer with in that bar, at that place” . There are the few REALLY good friends you make, who become people you know you will speak to again without a doubt, but you find yourself having the same conversations on Facebook Chat, Skype or any other IM, every few weeks…

Something along the lines of….
Friend: HEY! Omg I miss you!
You: I miss you too! Come to my country!
Friend: No, you come to my country!
You: I miss the country we were in together!
Friend: Me too! Let’s go back!
You: Yeah! Let’s just go!
Friend: Anyways I gotta get back to work
You: Ya me too
Friend: Miss you!
You: U too! Bye byes

BARF

Seriously? Come on now! I mean, this is the standard, not always all, but it sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it? I wonder how they had these sort of conversations ‘back in the day’ when you met someone travelling and you would become pen pals. I know what ‘pals’ means, but I have NO idea what this ‘pen’ you speak of is. Or, are our modern day conversations likes this because we take advantage of the fact that the person we travelled with is on our friend list, so they’re always kinda ‘there’? They won’t go away unless they DELETE you. Which we all know no matter who it is, we always feel slightly offended when we realized someone has digitally de-friended us.

So many awesome people I’ve met seem to fade away. Many of them I will never see again and in most cases, we have travelled together but actually know very little about each other. Instead you get to know someones day to day personality – what makes them grumpy and what time they get hungry. You skip a few friendship steps when you meet people travelling, so certain things get left out and you have many irrelevant conversations that make little impact on your future relationship.

Even those friends I’ve become close with from being on the road together, and still speak too, with time we begin to loose contact and our relationship suffers. So I wonder if that will just continue to deteriorate as time goes on, or if it will plateau. I hope I don’t loose these friends, but people get jobs and families. This happens in all walks of life, not only the one of a traveller. Life changes with time and so do the people in it.?