Palms grimy with sweat, knees buckling, as your legs become precarious time bombs rather than support structures. The blood rushes towards your head as you open your mouth to utter an indiscernible dulcet squeak, “Could you please tell me where the nearest restroom is?”

In today’s youth culture, teens in particular, are losing the ability to speak to adults with ease. Speaking to someone in person is a fundamental part of everyday life, yet most teens find it extremely difficult. Fear of public speaking is understandable, but experiencing feelings of senseless terror when asking for directions or the time of day; that is pitiful.

In this era of technology teens are on many sites such as, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Tumblr, YouTube, and Instagram many hours each day. “The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device” according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, sometimes spending up to 7 ½ hours in front of a screen. As a result of this, teens are spending less time carrying on conversations in person, and spending more time communicating wirelessly via the Internet.
According to Wisconsin High School guidance counselor Drew Yingling, “personal interaction is definitely taking a downfall as a result of technological advances…young people are often nervous about face-to-face conversations, which makes them awkward when they do occur”.

I find myself cringing at the thought of approaching a clerk in a store or calling a business on the phone, for fear of communicating with an adult. This fear, which threatens to encompass us, stems from our extravagant use of technology. We text our friends instead of calling them if we have questions on homework, we immediately turn to Google if we want to know the hours of a store or business, and all thoughts of letter writing are set aside when a simple email would suffice. These are merely a few of the common conveniences, which we use simply to evade face-to-face communication.

The downside to these modern devices is that we miss out on a second part of communication, which is non-verbal. As said by Drew Yingling: “The more dependent a person is on communicating online or via text, the less adept they may be at picking up on subtle clues when they are communicating in person.” These ‘subtle clues’, including posture, eye contact and tone of voice, help conversations from becoming disjointed and…awkward.

Non-verbal signs reflect a lot about the person holding the conversation, and the listener. They demonstrate mood, interest, and confidence. When we as teens avoid eye contact, cross our arms, or fidget while holding a conversation with an adult, we may come across as disinterested or disrespectful. Understanding non-verbal signs may help us avoid these unwanted impressions that we give to others. It would also help us understand the cues that adults are giving to us as they listen to us. If we realize that the non-verbal signs are as important as verbal cues, then we can be more successful in coming across as honest and mature.

Why do teens fear conversing with adults you might ask? I personally do not like talking with adults for fear of sounding immature, not being knowledgeable about the subject, or irritating them. When I am compelled to start a conversation with an adult, I feel as though I am bothering them with my questions or comments. In a real life conversation, there is less time to consider what to say to get your point across in an intelligent and respectful manner. I tend to stumble through conversations, uncertain of how my point will be taken, anxiety no doubt written on my face. My unfortunate lapses in speech and inability to look adults in the eye, is exacerbated by countless hours spent texting my friends and posting trivial comments, photos and other posts on Facebook.
The longer we continue to text, tweet, and post, the more non-verbal skills we will lose. When we spend hours typing out short messages, we also lose some of the emotion that goes into our communication. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and professor at M.I.T states “Most of all, we need to remember — in between texts and e-mails and Facebook posts — to listen to one another, even to the boring bits, because it is often in unedited moments, moments in which we hesitate and stutter and go silent, that we reveal ourselves to one another.”
Many parents already regulate the amount of screen time younger children have, but if we as teenagers made a conscious effort to do the same; we could alleviate our social predicament. If we resolved to have one face-to-face conversation for every text or post we write, slowly but surely it would make a difference.