's motd Sunday June 24, 2012

[Guest guest]

FACE-TO-FACE

Sunday, 24 June 2012

How many of you have seen that movie, The Social

Network? It's all about whiz kid, Mark

Zuckerberg who introduced the world to

Facebook. I think, at last count, something like

900,000,000 people in just about every industrialized

country in the world are now on Facebook, including

me. It's fun! Lots of people love the idea of

getting to renew old friendships or even old flames from

years ago by connecting to this new high-tech social

network.

These days,

people actually text each other more

than they talk to each other.

Between Facebook, cell phones and texting, the only

thing I'm concerned about is that we may be losing the

oh-so-very important human and face-to-face interaction

between each other. And believe me...that's

important! A recent study revealed that, these

days, people actually text each

other more

than they talk

to each other. But did you

know that maintaining close personal friendships can

have a huge impact on your health?

A study at the University of California, San

Diego, found that women who had a high risk for

developing heart disease actually lowered

their odds of

having a heart-related medical episode if they had

larger person-to-person social networks. (I found

that news very intriguing.)

Our

circle-of-friends is shrinking in this modern age.

But unfortunately, our circle-of-friends is shrinking

in this modern age. A 2006 Duke University study

found that Americans have a full1/3 fewer

confidants than

they did 20 years ago. In other words, we're less

likely to have a close personal friend to confide in

about the things that are very important and dear to

us. You know, the kinds of things you would never

tell just

anybody. Hey, that's no good!

Technology is exciting but I don't want you losing

that close personal connection to the people who're

special to you. That's why it's very important to

carve out time to be spend with friends, to have that

human connection. When you're facing a problem, when

you're going through tough times or when you're simply

feeling all alone, nothing takes the place of a

friend to talk to one-on-one, face to

face.

More important

than technology is to have good friends you can rely

on.

We all rely on technology everyday of our lives and

that includes me. But even more important than

technology is to have good friends you can rely on.

I'm talking about friends you can actually spend

physical face-to-face time with. It's good for your

health, it's good for your soul and it's the best social

network any

of us can ever have.

Love,