Some people argue that social media is making us all less social. Reflecting on this, Robert Ashton decides that sometimes it is good to talk.

I've just listened to BT futurologist Dr Nichola Millard speak about the future. More specifically she talked about the way we communicate. Or rather, the way many of us don't. She said that if the telephone had just been invented, we'd hail it as a major breakthrough. Email, messaging and social media are all around us, but we don't spend enough time actually talking to each other.

I suspect I'm not unusual in that I prefer not to use the phone. Not that is unless it becomes obvious that the person I want to speak with is available at the other end of the line. Telephone tag is so frustrating and often, an email is enough to get the message across. Or is it?

Today's teenagers feel the same way about email. They have an account not to send messages, but because you need one to register your account with YouTube and Amazon. They prefer to chat, using one of a number of platforms. It makes them accessible to each other, yet pretty much inaccessible to everyone else.  

So what does this mean for the work I do around localism and community enterprise? Well as I reflect, I realise that actually it means quite a lot. In fact it's changed the way I view stimulating collaborative social change. Not only is it difficult to get the message across to someone without the subtleties of conversation. It is also increasingly difficult to get people communicating with each other across quite narrow generational divides.

For example with my own social business Swarm, Jess our very able project manager is frustrated by the apparent unresponsiveness of teenagers, despite only being in her early 20s. Equally frustrating for her, are some of my communication traits. The generation gaps are narrowing. People five years younger than Jess causes similar frustration to in my case, someone 36 years older.  

We all know the benefits of inter-generational exchange. It's a key plank of good community development. But when each successive generation prefers to choose a different communication medium, getting them to talk to each other becomes a problem. Or does it.

I suspect that for some of you, the answer is on the tip of your tongue. We need to encourage people to have face-to-face conversation. We need to return to the communication equipment we use first; our mouths, ears and eyes. Eyes, because non-verbal communication is actually the most important of all. And unless face to face, it doesn't work at all.

So let's pause a moment and think about how effectively we communicate. Let's make time to go and talk to people, face-to-face as we once did. Perhaps conversation in the street is the ultimate expression of localism. Perhaps it's time to talk!