“Superficial, sudden, unsifted, too fast for the truth, must be all telegraphic intelligence. Does it not render the popular mind too fast for the truth? Ten days bring us the mails from Europe. What need is there for the scraps of news in ten minutes?” 

In August of 1858, with the completion of a transcontinental telegraph line looming over America, The New York Times was already concerned with what it would mean to receive information in minutes rather than days. How could we replace the detailed, human nuance of the handwritten letter with a series of dots and dashes? When the Times asked whether the “very great use” of the telegraph could “add to the happiness of mankind,” it was not suggesting that technology was evil—it merely wondered whether faster communication was better communication.

For most of recorded human history, we reached each other by writing. From matters of government and confessions of love to business inquiries and personal meditations, all were etched onto tablets or paper, carried by couriers, ships and postal systems, and placed into the hands of one’s correspondent. Words had to be selected with intention, as sending a new set might take weeks.

If the telegraph collapsed distance once, this feat has now been accomplished tenfold. Today, the separation between the Americas and Europe, between us and those whom we desire to reach, lies only in the time it takes to move one’s thumbs across a screen. We optimize Wi-Fi, minimize language, and respond “ain’t reading allat” to text messages that resemble paragraphs. Modern communication is, undoubtedly and extraordinarily, faster. Indeed, of very great use.

And yet. Can I truly say I feel closer to my friends and family, especially those who live far away, because I can reach them in seconds? How often do I take advantage of this infinitesimal distance? And how often does it actually mean something? Communication is one thing. Connection has become something entirely apart.

I am known to be a bad texter. I have gone hours and days without answering a text, mostly of the non-urgent variety. I don’t delay responses out of disregard or some unspoken moral gripe with technology (the gripes I do have with technology, I speak aloud). I find it takes time to metabolize not just the message itself, but the person who sent it to me. Last semester, I was meaningfully separated from the people I had grown up around for the first time in my life. Receiving a message from home, or from people who resembled home, seemed to require far more than I felt I could convey in a few seconds between classes with strategically chosen emojis. These would be “scraps of news,” and as that columnist in 1858 asserted, they felt “too fast for the truth.”

I want my friends from home to know what I’m doing. I tell them about my weekend plans, what I’m writing and where I like to study. What do I say when I’m worried the plans I have are too much or too little, that what I’m writing lacks meaning or direction or talent, that the way I study and the things I’ll remember are wrong? What stops me from expanding, and what I suspect stops many others, is the medium itself. This is because texting, like its predecessors—instant messaging and, before that, telegrams—is designed for convenience, speed and efficiency. Feeling and depth are essentially inconvenient, slow and inefficient.

We do not have less to share or less to say. The world is faster, more demanding, more expansive and more accessible than in any previous century. I notice how little room there is, in a normal day, to say what I actually mean. Elaboration, reflection, thought. These seem to have become events, occasional luxuries and incompatible with daily life. For birthdays, anniversaries and graduations, we write cards. What is it about these moments that still demands writing? Is it truly any emotion that we do not already feel in an ordinary day? I do not believe that the popular mind has yet been rendered too fast for the truth, or depth or feeling. That would be giving technology far too much credit—and ourselves far too little.

Alexandra Fahey is a member of the Class of 2029.