“Let’s talk”. It seems like a simple phrase and a simple request. In this era of smartphones, IM’s, tweeting, online dating and texting vernacular; are we still able to have a conversation? I am not anit-technology, I rather enjoy social media. It concerns me that I look around and I see too often that people 30 and under are slowly losing the ability to converse. I mean, we have friends, but how many of them are actually “friends”. We meet a person at a party/concert/bar, we talk briefly, and if we remember their name, we add them on Facebook and, all of the sudden, we’re friends! We don’t really get to know an individual. We don’t really learn their life stories; we learn their “likes” and the statuses that they agree with. We don’t learn their favorite songs and what those songs mean to them; we see what they’re listening to on “Spotify”. We call these people our friends, but how much do we know about them if we can’t pull up their profiles first? I hear the art of communication decaying within the community. I hear people taking their “text speak” and applying it to real life. Simple sentence structure, elementary conjugations; things the previous generation would take for granted….falling by the wayside. Who would have thought that “You/Your/You’re” would become a skill instead of simply implied.

Not too long ago, I walked into a local bar in my hometown of Bloomsburg, PA. I sat down with 4 people who have been my friends for a few years. I took a sip of my beer and something odd occurred to me. No one was talking. They were all deeply consumed by their smartphones; playing a mindless game, texting someone, looking at the latest “meme” on some random Facebook page. Completely engulfed by the banality of their phone, an item they have with them day and night, they were not taking advantage of a rare commodity…human interaction. They were not embracing the time we had as friends, the moments that can’t be duplicated in a text. They were wasting the precious moments we had, the camaraderie of friends sharing a drink and discussing current topics and our recent life experiences.  All of this lost.

Now let me tell you about a place I frequent a few blocks up.

On the Main Street of Bloomsburg is a place called the Moonlit Oasis. It is a hookah lounge. It is not what you would expect from a hookah lounge. It is not what I expected from a hookah lounge. It is a place that allows communication to flourish. Smoking hookah can be such a social event when done correctly. It brings people together from all walks of life to sit down, share a pipe, and interact. How many places out there would even consider taking 10% off your bill if you “check in” your cell phone? It is an incentive to put down the device and talk to one another. The Moonlit Oasis, by design, to be a person; we are social creatures, after all. It entices you to take one of the board games of the shelves and to allow our social selves to be expressed person-to-person, rather than device- to-device.  Who would have thought that, even in a small town, it would be such a relief to find a business that encourages actual interaction? Looking someone in the face and having to read the tone of voice is a breath of fresh air in a world where sarcasm over IM’s seems to be the most pressing communication issue to many. I don’t mean to preach or harp on the issue….but really, how often have you had an at-length conversation with a group of friends? I see this simple, yet underappreciated social event, fading away…one day to be talked of nostalgically in some online forum. I appreciate the business owner that doesn’t just try and create the façade of a social setting; he succeeds on creating a social setting. The encouragement of the ever-dwindling ability to banter and connect is something to be admired. In my area, there are far too few places where you can meet with friends, actually hear what’s being said and enjoy a nice evening between old friends while still having the very real possibility of making new ones with the people who surround you. And by making new friends, I don’t just mean adding to a number on a social networking site; I mean making an actual friend who knows the actual you. This only comes through the art of conversation.