International Real Person Week Officially Launches on December 26, 2008.

I love social media.

I’ve loved it since it was called ‘community’ way back in the dinosaur age of eworld’s Town Square, AOL’s million-members-a-day chat rooms, Prodigy and Compuserve, MOO, MUD, IRC and late great avatar pioneer, The Palace.

What I don’t love is how easy it is to go for an eternity without actually talking to your dearest friends and family. Remember talking? Talking with your voice — not your vox. Talking aka picking up the telephone to use said voice to mouth actual words. Not texting. Not pinging. Not posting or tweeting. But actually generating words that often emerge kinda sloppy amidst saliva and lukewarm latte. Words that haven’t been bud-urled or tweetdecked. Words that may have ‘status’ or ‘mood’ but probably add up to more than 140 characters.

Gee-whiz technology has just made it so damn simple to virtually skip humanity altogether, hasn’t it? Yes, I know all the benefits of our tweeting, bleating global online village shooting ‘share not sell’ links at each other 24/7. And much of this is to the good. Fascinating, in fact. It’s just that sound can be so lovely. As in that joyful screech: “Honey, get in here! It’s SARAH and she’s on the PHONE!”

Then there’s the Lost Art of Face Time. Also known as f2f. Being up-close-and-personal frequently means being within garlic breath and boot-stink range. This is where the basic grooming techniques taught at your Girl Scout mother-and-daughter Hygiene Day may come in handy. Photoshopping your profile or even Elfing Yourself is of no use here. In person is as real as it gets; it’s Velveteen Rabbit real.

So I’m going to start the Real Person ball rolling here and officially declare December 25 through New Year’s Day, 2009 as the first annual International Real Person Week. During IRP, you take the Pledge to:

• Call your old friends, frenenemies, cousin Tim, Aunt JuJu, Uncle Willie, second grade lockermate, JDJSEGS buddies (you know who you are, Liz and Sherry), anybody who deserves to hear you utter vowels and consonants — at least one per day during IRP
• Have face to face — that is, IN PERSON meetings (not Meet Ups or Tweet Ups or any mash-up of this concept) — at least one per day during IRP.

Of course feel free to continue to Social Media to the Max during IRP.  The week is not meant to be either/or … Real vs Virtual … be as uber-social as you want.  But I’m going to ask you to do one thing — and that is to view this oldie-but-goodie (now 35,216,597 views) one more time to remember how amazing it is to be human.