One-way-roads always lead somewhere, else why do they exist? But our journeys and travels on earth are more interesting if we can get back home! And it’s a bit like that with communication – it’s always good to get feedback – two-way conversation trumps talking to yourself.

In today’s world, discourse between humans has never been easier or quicker, and I suspect it’s the speed that has destroyed the quality. One-way is often the prevalent flow as we are constantly and incredibly bombarded with information, like never before over a wide range of media.

I was born in the thirties, with a shared landline phone (if you were lucky), and just a few AM radio stations. I recall my grandma’s first new-fangled radio had two banks of batteries and a large, horn-shaped speaker! And we had a choice of a morning newspaper, the ‘The Sun’ or ‘The Age’, and the evening ‘Herald’; and we had an ice-block food chest! For real emergencies you could handwrite a brief Telegram and the local Post Office would send it off – and a ‘telegram boy’ would hand deliver it, anywhere in Australia!

In those war years, we had government-issued Ration Books (I still have one!), little wallet-sized, thin cardboard books of coupons for Petrol, Clothing, and Food. Even sugar was rationed! Handwritten letters often took a week to find their way to the recipient; but the precious replies were such a delight, slowly flowing between us, as lovers and families, and were often saved and treasured for years!

Nowadays, personal contact often seems to be centred and confined to one of the many, usually abbreviated, ‘instant’ forms of phone-based internet. Yes, I agree, the messages can be simple, and sometimes important, but they are ephemeral. And now those various electronic exchange systems have virtually replaced posted letters.

Even personal email is losing favour. Instead, that instant messaging dominates – and it demands immediate response! Don’t we all constantly see heads bowed to phones, everywhere?

Being now somewhat senile, I confess to being stuck in a time-warp, with only a limited understanding of the vast range (and power) of all those social media options. As a result, I now continue to use only emails. I prefer email because it provides the option to ‘read and respond at an appropriate time and place‘. Somewhat amazingly, I have also learned how to post this text to my website – but, again, at my own pace and timetable!

The momentum of electronic messaging and the proliferation of spurious unwanted promotional material often deters some people from reading and responding to a lot of emails! The result is that sometimes email is at risk of being pushed down the ever-growing inbox, quickly deleted and ultimately lost into the internet void….

We all love to use our complex phones and computers for many things. But nothing beats face-to-face two-way conversation!