Is Digital Writing the Final Resting Place of Connection?

Every day, when we interact with fellow human beings, we are improvisors. We are given prompts by the senses; the smell of grandma's fresh baked snickerdoodles, the taste cinnamon spice sticking to the roof of your mouth, as those warm cookies disintegrate. The cracks in the cold kitchen tile engulfing the pad of your foot, as you look into her gently aging eyes, and embrace the soft cotton of her red gingham apron.

Then you hear the inevitable question: "How are you?"

In that moment, there are infinite choices of how to react to that stimulus. Some are so outlandish that our consciousness doesn't acknowledge them. For example, you may not choose to climb onto the kitchen countertop and do your best rendition of an irish jig in that moment. But you could. Technically speaking.

Alas, instead your mind makes a seemingly instantaneous decision between a few narrowed down choices, reached by almost infinite amounts of personal and social context. Firing synapses in the prefrontal cortex give way in the fraction of a second to a complete environmental analysis, followed by a responsive action. If there is a crowd of cousins also trying to hug grandma, you may stick to a simple "I'm fine, how are you?" If it is just the two of you, you may elaborate with a highlight from your week, month, year. If you're comfortable with each other and something is on your mind, you may use the question as a catalyst to air a grievance, or seek advice. If you're not comfortable with each other, you may lie. Using even more imagination.

As strange as it may seem, despite the spontaneity with which you may recieve a text or email notification on your phone or computer. The spontaneity of this imagined scenario; this instant application of imagination, improvisation, creativity, rarely exists in a digital communication space. There are so many variables communicators online can't see. They can't see what kind of day each other is having. They can't hear each other's voices. They don't know how long their digital correspondent takes to type messages. They may not even know each other's faces. People online can give themselves infinite amounts of time and space to curate their image and response to thier liking, if they so desire. They will have their pick of excuses for their delayed reply. And the other party's interpretation of truth is crucially limited by a lack of percieved tone, subtextual nature. Without the sponatneity of reaction to stimuli, can digital communication alone truly foster human connection? The imagery of my grandmother, paired with a photo of a heart-shaped cookie cutter, in a pile of cinnamon, might have evoked an emotional reaction. But, is it the same as being there? Seeing and hearing her? How do we fill in those gaps in digital communication accurately? How important is it to unplug, and "revert back" to previously concieved notions of language, fostered with in-person interactions?