See - that really smokes me. On the rare occasion I forget to turn my rigner off when in public, I always apologize.

I stopped in at the Starbucks on Marvin Rd the other day to meet a friend, the guy in front of me in the line barks his order "latte" to the cashier and then I realize he has a cellphone headset on. Having worked as a barista, I would just ignore people who tried to order while talking on a cell phone - it was my brother's coffee shop and he didn't care - I'd just ask the next person in line what they wanted. I digress...back to the Starbucks guy. On my way out, I just couldn't elp myself. I stopped at his table, and asked him if his "please" was broken, when the inevitable look of confusiion washed over his face, I explained that the cashier and barista were not robots to serve his needs, and they were in fact humans.

In Seattle, Red Mill burgers has a No Cell Phone policy, and one day I actually saw them escort someone out the door, still yapping into their phone. Gotta love that. Technology isn't making our lives better, it's causing a rapid decay in the social fabric. We will ignore everyone around us so we can IM the person in the next cubicle. I used to rant the we would pick up the phone instead of going next door to see our neighbor, but so few people know thier neighbors anymore it's moot. Every screen we add, be it a Blackberry, iPod, Cellphone, Xbox, whatever - they're all just a replication for how we deal with others. Everyone becomes anonymous. That's why the the woman in the store didn't even acknowledge the existence of the checker - she was merely spam in human form or another gadget to help her out.

I don't agree that technology is not making our lives better. The possibilities for interaction with people we would never have the chance to communicate with are endless due to advances in communication technology. I do agree that how people, for the most part, choose to use this technology should be examined. The television-as-babysitter idea, where a parent plops their child in front of the TV and goes about their lives is a detriment to the child, if abused, by robbing them of social interaction. I see the same pattern with cell phones and other devices, we ARE communicating, but not with people around us. The more I live, the more I see that balance is the key in all things. We have to think about money, but we also have to think about our values. We have the need to communicate easily with people far away, but we also need to communicate with our neighbors.

I agree with most of what you say, especially on the subject of technology making communication impersonal.

I don't agree with your thought that a crash eliminating most of our communication capabilities would lead to our downfall. We, as humans, are extremely resourceful and adaptable. It would, without doubt, change our lives dramatically, and some would panic, not knowing how to handle it, but overall I think we would continue in the best way we could. Being that we are all animals, we have a survival instict that takes over in trying times. This reminds me of discussions I have with friends about the end of oil. Now, there are many, many different estimates as to when this will happen, but we all agree that humans will survive it. It would be "the end of the oil age", just as a collapse in our communications abilities would merely be "the end of the communication age".

The technology angle is one approach on this issue, but another is the insulting way we regard employees in the service industry. The class system is alive and ill.