Technology Importanceometer

Communicating in today’s busy, web-centric world gives people more choices than ever in how they can communicate with each other. Use the scale below to determine how important you are to someone communicating with you. Methods are listed in order from most to least important.

1. Face to face – the most important way to communicate. Nothing says you’re important more than a face to face meeting.
2. Phone call – When face to face communication isn’t possible due to distance or time, the next best option is a phone call. A plane ticket was out of the question but long distance fees weren’t.
3. Email (sent directly to you) – Sometime cost matters. When you don’t justify the cost of a stamp or waiting for the post office to deliver a message would just take too long, there’s email.
4. Letter – Taking the time to hand write a message and cough up 44 cents for a stamp shows that someone values you, although the fact that it will take several days for you to receive it slightly reduces your importance.
5. Instant message – I need to tell you something, however it’s not important enough for me to fire up my email program nor is it important enough for me to spell check what I’m writing, so I’ll send you an instant message instead. I also hope you weren’t expecting an attachment.
6. Text message – I’m holding in my hand a cell phone, a device which is capable of the number two most important form of communication, however I decided against calling and instead chose to send you a short text message. My thumbs are willing to hunt and peck out some message that won’t be spell checked nor grammar checked, and will probably contain idiot shorthand like “ur” and “cul8r”, however they aren’t willing to dial your phone number so that I can use my voice to actually talk to you. Alexander Graham Bell spins three times in his grave for every text message you send.
7. Video/Teleconference – I was required to tell a bunch of people something all at the same time. No one merited a face to face meeting and calling each person individually would’ve been waaaay too much work.
8. Email (cc’d to you) – This message isn’t even really for you but I thought I should cover my ass and let you know what I was telling someone else. Read this if you’re bored.
9. Facebook – When you want to share information with a bunch of people you may or may not know, and don’t care about enough to tell directly, write it on Facebook. Sharing information by using Facebook is like sending out a holiday newsletter detailing what you’ve been up to all year – only more often and with less importance.
10. Twitter – The least important, and most narcissistic, method of communicating, Twitter says it all. As long as it’s less than 140 characters. Tweets have all the value of a fortune cookie message and are roughly equivalent to writing something on the wall of a bathroom stall. You don’t really care who reads it and almost no one gives a damn.