It has occurred to us that with continued technological breakthroughs, the human voice may become extinct.

I remember seeing an old “Star Trek” episode on TV where a group of aliens. Instead of talking, they read each other’s minds. They had no voices.

Can you imagine a world without the sound of voices? There still would be noise but no chattering of women at a lunch meeting or giggles of children on a playground or guffaws of old men as they recall youthful antics.

Younger generations have every technological advantage, with many more on the horizon — all of them indicating less face-to-face communication.

Take cell phones. They’re a great invention but instead of talking, people are texting. Have you noticed when people are together, they are not talking to each other? Sometimes they’re texting, even within their group.

How about global positioning toys? Instead of stopping at a gas station and asking directions, we type in a request and instantly have exact directions to our destination.

E-mail, chat rooms, and other forms of non-oral communication have taken over our world.

A “first date” may be through a chat room or a text message. Where’s the romance? Where’s the chemistry of hearing that person’s voice for the first time?

Eventually, children are going to learn texting skills before they talk.

I’ve always been big on talking. To me, speaking with words is a skill that separates us from the apes.

And what about our texting and online chatting skills? Abbreviations, incomplete sentences — they do not make our English teachers proud.

Here I go again, showing my age but I just hate to see us race ahead with technology but fall behind with being human.

— susan berg