Hopefully this is not a case of the guy who turned old and lost touch with the younger generation.

But over the course of the past couple years – and more particularly over the past few weeks – I have noticed a shift in what was once standard protocol.

Take the job interviewing process as an example.  Once upon a time you mailed your resume, followed up with a phone call and scheduled an interview.  You then conducted the interview and followed up with a letter or card and phone calls.  Not so much anymore.

Now electronic resumes are simply emailed.  There are rarely if any follow-up phone calls.  Even in post-interview scenarios, emails are fired off within hours of the meetings. But no follow up phone calls.  None.

I have come to the inevitable conclusion that the new generation of communicators does not understand the purpose and/or value of picking up the phone and making a real-time connection.  Instead you get this:

“I texted you” or “I posted it on Facebook” or “I emailed you.”

The fact that I didn’t acknowledge the text or post or email doesn’t seem to cause concern for the modern-day communicator.  Apparently in the new world of instantaneous digital communications only the sending part is important… not the receiving.

And with that I am reminded of one of my favorite Seinfeld scenes: “See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation and that’s really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.”

Likewise, anyone can send a communication, but the really important part of the communication is the receiving.  But maybe it’s just me.