Think back to a time when communication was anything but plentiful. Think back to a time when the phone didn’t exist; to a time when communication between families and loved ones was really a sacred medium. Back then, when you chose to address someone else from afar, the means of communication was probably a letter, and in that letter, whole lives would unfold on sheet after sheet of paper. Moreover, when the receiving party obtained such a letter, they would revel in the time and effort it took to conceive, and more than likely respond, line by line, to everything the original letter had to say. Such a back and forth conversation really puts the uselessness of today’s communication in perspective.

The ways in which we are able to communicate continue to multiply; yet the likelihood of any real communication being passed through them becomes less and less. That division, in essence, is the problem that is growing within our culture. We are in an age of unparalleled information, where almost every question can be researched, and for the most part answered, in a matter of minutes, yet the average human does little to nothing to store those answers. Much like what happens with the over-abundance of any other asset, humans have begun to take information itself for granted. We are living in a culture of disposable intelligence. There has become less need to store information in our brains, since searching a server is much easier.

When asked a simple question we are no longer drawing on a personal reservoir of knowledge and experience to obtain the answer. Instead, knowing that the answer can be found somewhere quickly online, the average person would look it up, regurgitate the information, and then forget it as soon as they read it. Though doing so does produce a uniform answer every time, it produces a much larger problem as well. The problem that arises is the devaluing of the information itself.

Our world has regressed to a dark ages of sorts, where the lowly peasants merely ask the wiseman all their questions, and accept whatever answers spill forth with unwavering confidence. This furthers the issue of the general public not being intellectually responsible for anything, because in a world where our wiseman, the internet, can place a fact directly into your hand, the amount of information you carry with you on a daily basis grows smaller and smaller. After all, what’s the point of carrying a canteen, if at any given moment there is water on tap a few inches away?

This issue of this disposable information is only compounded by social networks like Facebook and Twitter expanding at an alarming rate. Now, not only has true fact-based information such as historic dates or scientific discovery been devalued, but also the human experience is falling victim. In our present culture, hundreds of thousands of people continue to publish their every waking moment into the undulating ether of the internet. What was once the subtle intricacies of life have become vacant blasts of useless information; minute by minute.

A couple years ago before the inception of these social networks took hold, information about something new you had for breakfast, or a quirky situation you observed while on the bus would be valuable conversation nuggets. While with friends you would recount your stories, and the ever-present “how was your day” question would be enough to kick start real discussions about world issues, or personal feelings about things that are going on around you. Now, however, such pieces of information are relegated to status updates on these social networks. The minutia of everyday life, the little blips and bumps that add zest and character are being smoothed out.

For those of you who can’t see the distinction between the sharing information personally, and sharing information impersonally so clearly just yet, a parallel can be drawn to a common situation that has happened to just about everyone. For example, when you come home and go through your mail, or even your email actually, most people do the same thing: search for messages addressed directly to you, and filter out the impersonal messages. Usually, any message that is clearly directed toward a group of people gets called junk mail (or spam in email), and instantly discarded. Your brain sees broad messages as utterly useless, and immediately writes it off as not worth the time it takes to read. This practice is not limited to credit card offers and Nigerian email scams, however. Every time you update your status with a broad vagary about your life, you’re doing the exact same thing to your message.

Essentially, whenever you publish a piece of information about yourself in a generic form on the internet, you’re saying to all those who see it: “Here’s something about me that’s not terribly important,” Because, let’s be honest, anything of real importance is saved to be shared personally with real friends and family. To find out you’re getting a divorce through Facebook, or that your best friend has cancer through a “tweet” on Twitter is a direct slap to the face of the person reading the message, and to the importance of the message itself. This is the exact reason why when we see someone online learning of something important to their life through social media, we laugh and make jokes about it.

So what does that say about what we do learn from social media? If every message that gets passed through a social network has been filtered for importance before it even gets published, everything that gets said is essentially pointless. The instant you sum up your experience, and send it out en mass to everyone, the message immediately becomes worthless. People are willingly turning their lives into communal junk mail. Here’s what I had for breakfast, world, isn’t it interesting? I saw someone with a weird hairdo today, can’t you relate with me?

Now, at the time of writing this, there has been a lot of media coverage of the people in Iran using Twitter to get their message out about what’s been happening over there concerning the social situation. What I’m discussing here is not bound to that. I am writing about what is happening to the people of my country, the spoiled brats of the United States. The people in this country are not oppressed, and are not using these services as a last means to get their message heard. The people in this country are narcissistic, and using services like Facebook and Twitter to gain attention from anyone who will look.

So where does that leave us? As our culture spins more and more on an impersonal axis, and true relevant information is pulled from our messages to make them more palatable to the whole, the death of real information seems to continue. The strange thing is that not since the Renaissance has a wealth of information this large been readily available, and yet people don’t seem to care. Everyone is too busy today, too wrapped up in themselves to allow anything longer than 140 characters to enter their mind. The tragic irony of the situation is that while people push to make more messages about themselves and the world available, the less is getting through. A headline about a bus getting bombed is of no more importance than one about someone’s meal choice. You read it, you maybe crack a smile or frown, and then you move on. Everything has become trivialized, and it’s snowballing out of control.

So now a toast: Here’s to those of you who made it through this whole article. Here’s to all of you who pressed on and opened your mind. Here’s to those of you who think there’s more to life than status updates, and here’s to thought. Here’s to open discussion, and here’s to the fact that sometimes a well-developed thought means you might have to spend more than two minutes to articulate it.

As our culture limps into the future on the crutches of faked social interaction, and the wealth of knowledge we spent so long to acquire slowly dies by the wayside, I can’t help but feel ashamed for every person who would rather use a generic acronym than type what they really mean. So disconnect for a while, go see the world; and the next time you see a quirky old lady on the bus crocheting an elephant, don’t think about how funny your “tweet” is going to be, or about updating your status. Instead, think about it; let it sink in. Gaze into the eyes of what’s out there and really absorb it. There’s information and experience out there that will never be able to be captured in a few pixels on someone’s smart phone, so stop contributing to the problem and think a little, form thoughts, and articulate your reasoning. Everyone will thank you for it.