Automation, a curse or a blessing?

Great things have been achieved in the field of word processing. To create the text of this discourse, the various functions of WordPerfect were a great convenience.

Spelling checks on the one hand prevent us from allowing certain language errors to go uncorrected, but on the other hand they make us lazy and stimulate incorrect language use.

In the trail of word processing we see serial mail, a form of ‘personalised’ correspondence based on automated address bases. Such automated address bases on the one hand prevent us from forgetting important relations, but on the other hand we send off all kinds of information all too easily and mechanically.

I myself was treated to an example of automated address base last Christmas. One of my acquaintances was so kind to send me a Christmas greeting created by means of Desktop Publishing and sent in an envelope labelled with a sticker from an automated address base. That is progress, some of you may say, although I have the feeling that the essence of a Christmas greeting (some personal, human attention) was hardly present anymore.

Another phenomenon of word processing is building block correspondence, in other words: prefabricated text blocks. These text blocks prevent a great waste of creativity. If you think carefully once, you can save yourself a lot of trouble formulating. Especially for solicitors’ offices, customer service departments or departments handling applications, text blocks can be a real relief. However, at the same time the convenience itself is the disadvantage. It would not be such a bad idea, for example, if solicitors were to formulate understandable and concise texts. In stead of pouring their archaic professional lingo into text blocks, they might choose a more to-the-point style of writing.

It used to be the sender of information who had go to all the trouble of formulating (or even writing); now the person on the receiving end has become the victim of the automated information overload. Because we receive more (and seemingly more personal) information, we have relatively less time to read. This will lead to even more and more intense communication directed at us, until, finally, we will not be able to hear ourselves think in the midst of all the shouting, figuratively speaking.

Especially with the creation of texts and the use of electronic mail, the true art lies in restraint. What do you think? Relief or lamentation? Lamentation about yet another special letter, that you, and fourteen million of your countrymen were so very lucky to receive?