Never has any generation lived in an age so aware of friendship.

The term social media suggests friendship – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine and the like.

We “friend” people on Facebook and our total number of friends is tallied on the site for all to see almost as if to claim bragging rights.

We text – usually about ourselves.

When we talk, we are increasingly ego centered.

Dale Carnegie, the still heavyweight champion of human relations, said to focus on that which other people want makes them like us more.

If he is still correct then we are making a lot of enemies.

Not answering texts.

Answering only what we want to answer.

Talking in person or on the phone with others about our favorite topic –ourselves.

Don’t be a friend who takes.

Give your time and sincere interest in the lives of others.  Even strangers.

You won’t die of neglect.

In fact, you will feel great knowing you are empowered to make other people come alive and at the same time crave being your friend.

Friends who give, give of their time and sincere interest.

They put aside their own personal needs.

In giving, they receive.

You can get my next update for free by email here.

This kid is staring at a screen way to early in life apparently with his dad’s permission.

I snapped this photo at the Apple Store in Cherry Hill, NJ mall as I stared in disbelief.

I mentioned to another customer playing with the new iPhone and looking on in disbelief that if she wanted to learn all the new features, ask the little boy in the stroller.

Increasingly younger children are learning how to scroll and click before they learn how to interact with others.

Parents are at wits end as to what to do because they want their children to be able to succeed in the digital world and yet they know what damage is being done to developing brains that are being shortchanged on human interaction.

Then there is peer pressure – even if your kid must observe screen time hours what about their friends and even their teachers?

Here’s some solace.

A smartphone is a dumb replacement for human interaction.

But it is a wonderful tool to augment communication and access information.

Never turn your back on new technology.

Embrace it.

But be an example of balance to your kids, your friends and associates by putting digital devices in their place.

Smartphones are not a way of life.

They are tools to live life better.

Add your name to our private mailing list to receive new updates daily here.

The best advice I ever heard about not letting digital communication ruin our lives is:

Give your loved ones the same attention that you give your favorite digital device.

Stark reality is:  digital beats personal and our relationships suffer when we let this get out of control.

This is a battle I fight every day because I love the immediacy, convenience and instant information my digital devices can give.

New technology cannot replace the human need to relate to each other in a direct, personal way.

Marriages suffer.

Children are literally left to their own devices and are robbed of parental involvement.

We become desensitized to dealing with other people directly when we never see them, never know when we’ve pleased or hurt them.

Some thoughts:

1. Spend as much time in the present directly relating to others as you spend online, in social media or enveloped in your digital devices, websites and apps.
2. Reward those around you with “digitally free” dinners, days, outings and time spent together.
3. Make up for being absent because you’re spending too much time with technology by greeting the ones you value – who matter the most – as if you were just returning from a week’s absence from them.

Technology is not going away and shouldn’t.

But meaningful, loving relationships will continue to suffer if an equal amount of our time and attention is not focused on undistracted direct personal relationships.

It’s natural.

We all get concerned about the finite number of years our loved ones have left and for that matter what we have.

What may be surprising is that the fear of death is not a condition of the old, but also the young – many of whom increasingly are becoming obsessed with it.

Life is a journey with a beginning, middle and end.

There is no effective way to push aside the fear of death other than to make sure we fear not living every day that we have more than death.

I know a man who is raining cancer who asked his urologist if he could help him live just a few more years.  Of course, as doctors will tell you, once we get the reprieve, we want more.

The author and Mayo Clinic physician Dr. Amit Sood actually likes to be conscious of how little time we have as a reminder not to waste it.

He counts the number of years until his daughter leaves for college, the number of holidays he is likely to have left with his parents.  And although this may seem maudlin to some, this motivates him to enjoy every moment in the present.

Surveys show that people in hospice at the end of life never wish that they had worked hours of work, or pursued earning a higher salary.  They wish that they had more time for families, friends, experiences and dealing with life’s ups and downs.

Focus on living every day to the fullest because living to 100 doesn’t replace living 100% using the healthy “fear” of not living the life that we have this moment.

It isn’t an iPhone that people don’t like and actually, social media is a wonderful invention to connect thoughts, words, pictures and videos in real time.

It’s the lack of face-to-face interaction that is causing a society that even young people – addicted to digital devices – are increasingly concerned about.

Maybe that is you or someone you know.

When I can communicate anything I want with a tap of my digital device, I cannot appreciate if I have pleased you, disappointed or hurt you.

The lack of in-person feedback tends to make me more insensitive to those around me even as I get new digital tools and apps to “communicate” better.

So, what to do?

Give up the smartphone, avoid social media – drop out of the world as it now exists?

That is not necessary.

But there are a few things that can help maintain sensitivity to others that will not only enhance relationships but make digital contact more rewarding.

1. Think before sending.  Since we cannot see the reaction we are going to get put a little more thought into how your message may be received before sending.
2. Schedule face time for people who matter.  You know when you’re spending too much time communicating with digital tools.  When this happens, go direct.
3. Try FaceTime live video chats where you can see a person’s response to you in real time.  It helps to keep it sensitive to the impact of your words and thoughts.

Ask questions as often as you can.  Don’t always make “me” statements.  There is so much self-absorption in the world, we don’t want to be part of it.  Be sincerely interested in others – a good rule of thumb on our digital devices and in person.

Used to be that teens suffered from anxiety due to their hormonal changes and coming of age from adolescence to adulthood.

But the world is fast – very fast.

We are intertwined in social media and connected to people in ways that are not always fulfilling and rewarding.

Anxiety is an epidemic.  The Anxiety and Depression Association says that 10% of all teens experience anxiety so severely that it disrupts their lives.

Fleeting thoughts.

Not always knowing what causes the anxiety.  Scary stuff.

Many stressed out people turn to drugs and alcohol, but there are healthier ways to help a person who is experience runaway anxiety.

1. Listen carefully and respectfully to their concerns and remain non-judgmental.
2. Calm the anxious person but reassure them that anxiety is a natural part of life and that when it sometimes gets out of hand, anxiety can be reduced and they can feel better again.
3. Draw the person out to explore what situations or what people may be contributing to their anxiety.
4. Offer praise when this person shows courage to forge ahead in life in the wake of such uneasiness.
5. Recommend seeking professional help if anxiety lasts longer than six months or if you become very concerned about how they are handling their anxiety.

One of my USC students, a handsome and smart young man with everything going for him approached me one morning before class with tears in his eyes and said, “Professor Del Colliano, I cannot sit in this classroom”.

At first I joked and said, “Oh, you’ve seen my lesson plan”.

But soon it became apparent that he was so upset that to require him to do anything would be useless.

So I gave him the option to sit in the back of the room or leave as long as he returned to my office later in the day so I could try to be of help privately.

He sat in the last row.  Walked me to my office after class.  We chatted and he talked.  I listened.  He got help.  I suggested a diet with less sugar in it because sugar contributes to anxiety and we eat a lot of it in our daily diet.

I shared my own anxiety.

He won the battle and was forever grateful – not for any magic solution – but for allowing him to see his own anxiety and come up with his own plan to overcome it.

Always see clearly what you want.

And never forget being grateful for what you have.

I don’t know if you are like me.

I am ambitious – I have a knack for seeing vividly in my mind’s eye exactly that which I want in real ways that keep me motivated.

What I work on every day is to be as good at capturing a moment of gratitude for something that others might miss that reminds me how lucky I am to be alive.

As I have written previously, surveys show that the average couple needs $70,000 a year in the U.S. to be happy.

Anything less – they report less happiness corresponding with how much less they earn.

But curiously, anything more and they are not any happier.  Not even people who make millions of dollars.

$70,000 is the sweet spot.

This is significant because we spend a lifetime yearning to earn when we should also be yearning to learn the relationship between what we want and what we already are fortunate enough to have.

If you’ve seen the video of Baltimore Ravens’ star Ray Rice clocking his soon-to-be wife in an Atlantic City hotel elevator, you’ve got to ask – why did she go through with the marriage.

Even as the NFL scrambles to contain the outbreak of player violence and criminal behavior, Jenay Rice just wants everyone to leave them alone.

With domestic abuse, you really don’t get to be left alone because no one has a license to hit, hurt or abuse another person.

These are complicated issues from players whose families may not have always provided the tools to respect another person’s being.

Some thoughts:

1. Research shows verbal abuse is as painful as physical abuse and should be dealt with as the offense that it is.
2. Denying violent acts in a partner or spouse can be deadly.
3. A world in which violence is accepted and even championed (i.e., computer games) desensitizes people who get too used to hitting the reset button after fantasy play.  We get no reset button in life.
4. Drugs and alcohol exacerbate violent behavior and should not be considered excuses for physical or psychological abuse.

This scandal does not apply to just a group of elite athletes.

Psychologists tell us that one out of four children are abused by an adult.

Spousal abuse is ramping out of control.

Verbal abuse, shaming and cyberbullying is a real epidemic in our digital world.

Every man who has a mother, a sister, a wife or a daughter should know better than to hit or hurt a woman.

I had a girlfriend who attended not one but two semesters of therapy by an outstanding group called Women Against Rape.  I attended the boyfriend/spouse sessions simultaneously.

What we learned is that rape is a crime of violence not sex.

The takeaway is more apparent every day as Vikings running back Adrian Peterson is subsequently arrested for child abuse.

Love not hate.

Compassion not violence.

Communication not silence.

Quick!

Who was more likely to read a printed book last year – a Millennial or an older American?

In a recent Pew survey, more young adults report having read a book in the past year compared to older Americans, by a nearly 10 percentage-point margin.

62% of under 30’s believe there is “a lot of useful, important information that is not on the Internet.”

Perhaps surprisingly only 52% of older adults said the same thing.

When we make assumptions – in this case that young people are obsessed with their mobile devices and would never read a printed book – we are making a bad assumption that hurts us.

The same thing about race or gender.

Assume that all Asians like this and all gays are that by our own doing we withdraw from reality.

The rule of thumb should be:

Everyone is equal.

We’re all the same and we’re all different.

And an assumption is a terrible thing to make.

Philadelphia Eagles running back LeSean McCoy left a 20-cent tip to his waiter at the Philly restaurant PYT recently.

He didn’t like the service and refused to apologize for the tip but the restaurant said they were sorry that the incident became public.

What’s worse is none other than Charlie Sheen wrote a check to the waiter McCoy stiffed to make it up to him or her — $1,000 is a publicity opportunity in Hollywood.

My own poor service policy is that I leave a fair tip then leave the restaurant never to return.  Maybe it’s because my career is in radio and television and I don’t want to make a big stink.  I figure the staff reflects the management’s attitude toward service.

This is about a spoiled athlete, arrogance and lack of gratitude.

How about every time McCoy stinks up the football field, he gets his weekly salary cut by management?

We’re all human.

We all make mistakes.

Here’s how to make the people who “serve” you, happy to do so.

Call them by their name every time you talk to them.

Show respect.

Acknowledge any extra effort they may make that pleases you.

When you add the tip, write a note on the receipt or bill that tells what you appreciated most about their service.

And what if service was really, really bad?

Calculate the number of times you eat out every year and figure the percentage of times when service was horrible.

Then be thankful that percentage is so low.

By the way, the best customers in any restaurant are ex-waiters and waitresses.  They usually tip well and show appreciation because they know how hard the job is.