I love all my electronic gadgets – texting, tweeting, pinning and posting … but if you never take the relationship further, the interactions can remain quite superficial. I was reminded of this fact by Mari Smith in her great book ‘The New Relationship Marketing”. She reminds her audience that going offline (meeting people in person) optimizes online marketing because it allows you to deepen connections.

So one of the main takeaways from that book was that developing real relationships with people enhance our lives on so many levels….and that those real relationships need nurturing outside of an electronic interface. I think this somewhat obvious conclusion should give us pause in rushing to digitize our care interactions. When people are feeling vulnerable – because of disease, isolation or loss, human contact becomes even more important. A computer or a tablet cannot replace human connections, nor should they.

We all crave human interaction and I find that as I age, face-time with my family and friends becomes all that more precious. Maybe that is one of the pieces of wisdom that I’ve gained from living … that as exciting as it is to text, tweet, pin and post… sharing face time with someone I care about feeds my soul at a much deeper level than an electronic interaction.