Schmoozer Shortage

Pandemic generated behavioral changes nearly two years in evolution, long enough for new norms to emerge. Meetings now by Zoom which has also nudged into family gatherings, though not yet socialization with friends and neighbors, which remain largely fallow.  It has brought forth a certain etiquette, among them not interrupting a person speaking.  Unfortunately, our norms of conversation don't go that way.  Deborah Tannen in her You Just Don't  Understand devotes a chapter, maybe more, to the importance of spontaneity in verbal exchanges.  These include instant clarifications and also responses at the time they mean the most to the original listener.  We've lost that with Zoom.  Social media doesn't make a good surrogate.  People tweet or post or send an email.  We receive the message which takes us to a branch point of respond with words or emoticon or move on or delete.  We do it within our own time frame, usually long after whatever stimulated the original thoughts have long passed.

Engaging people requires a certain amount of schmoozing which comes in many forms.  There are parties where people circulate while holding something liquid, typically a disinhibitory liquid.  We once had real conversations, eroded by TV in my youth and irreversibly by more sophisticated screens now.  Once you could go to the doctor and have a history taken.  Now you fill out a form and get x-rayed.  After shabbos services, when food is served, traditional small talk has gotten smaller.

Those vital interactions, known in Yiddish as schmoozing, still exist but less accessible.  One more civilization reversal in the guise of progress.