Rant On the Devolution of Communication

I just read an article that has me worried.

The article is this, and it discusses a picture taken by Paula Deen and deemed the "perfect" Pinterest picture.

Listen: I don't care about Paula Deen, Pinterest, or the "perfect" picture, if such a thing exists. What I care about comes from the second to last paragraph in the article. Read below:

Besides having a popular Pinterest page, why does all this matter? Gupta sees sharing images as the language of the future. "Consumers today communicate using pictures rather than words, and we see that not only on Pinterest, but Instagram and Tumblr."

As an English major -- and, as of this Fall, an English professor -- this statement worries me terribly. 

I have no problem with images used as communication. For some people, this is a necessary and unavoidable form of communication, particularly for those who don't have the ability to talk or understand language construction. Many would probably say that images were the very first form of communications in which humans partook. What's easier, writing out a complicated sentence full of grammatical rules and social nuances in order to communicate a thought, or posting a nifty drawing on a rock to show someone else that you're hungry, or that the lions are on the prowl? 

But what has me concerned is the fact that we're no longer bound by the need to draw pictures or swap photos to communicate. We have words now, beautiful, important words, all of which want to be used and nourished. 

I'm being a little dramatic here, I know. But it's a dramatic situation. What happens to a culture when their primary form of communication becomes degraded to pictures and hieroglyphs? Some might say that it's a more efficient form of communication, and would actually help that particular society. I realize this function of graphical communication, but I also see its limitations. Sure, you can communicate a thought more efficiently with a picture than you can with a string of words. Those words have to have meaning, and that meaning is driven by context. Words can mean a myriad of things, and it's partly the job of the reader as decoder to understand the writer's/speaker's intention. It's a complicated process. 

But it's an important process. Humans aren't just here to communicate processes and monosyllabic thoughts. We don't just say, "We're hungry." We say, "I haven't eaten since breakfast -- just a piece of toast and nothing more -- so I could really use a sandwich right now. A big, overflowing mound of meat and vegetables. Something savory and delicious. And I want it right now." That's a poor example of what the written/spoken language is capable of, but it helps to prove my point: there's poetry in language. There's art, intention, the confusing process of creation that people need to have in order to live a full, colorful life. Even if you don't think you're a writer, a poet, a creator of something larger than yourself, you're wrong. You are all of those things and more. And what better way to express that potential than with language? Sure, art is more than language and writing. It's panting, photography, sculpture, and so much more. But boil it down to the essential parts, and I think that the written word is the most important conveyor or emotion and intention that we have. 

And we don't need to let that devolve into swapping picture for picture. It's rudimentary, and it's sad.

I couldn't find a picture that was suitable for the post, 

so here's a cute little puffin.

That is all.

-JJ