Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> said:

It does seem that many young people inhibit communication, e.g. hding
behind headphones and using the shortest form of interchange. Twitter
narrows rather than broadens communication.

Think of it like this: In days of old you wrote a long letter then despatched it. A reply came after a delay, and it too would be long. Likewise amateur radio. One person keys up and goes bla bla bla bla (and bla) forever until he finally hands over to the next person for them to spend forever going bla bla (etc). So, old style communication was long winded and intense with long gaps inbetween.

Nowadays yoof communication is short and rapid-fire 'grunts' coming very frequently, sometimes incorporating simultaneous multi-tasking conversations across multiple platforms, using voice and text, and not necessarily waiting until a previous 'grunt' has finished. Today's yoof are parallel running, whereas people used to be serial running.