The ubiquitous nature of mobile phones has taken effect. The people around me in public places are engrossed in text messaging, their voicemails, or talking on their phones. Less and less common are the random conversations between strangers. Is this relatively new addiction to connectivity going to weaken the fabric of public interaction?
More and more I see people in my office building, restaurants, on the sidewalk, in the grocery store - all head down staring involuntarily at their PDA whether it be a Blackberry or iPhone or some inferior copy of these two PDAs. They stare down as robots, as slaves to their information addiction. Scary.
It makes me wonder if most people want to be plugged into the Matrix. Why not have smarter computer direct and live your life for you? Replace the infantile iPhone with the brain of the Matrix and then you really won't have to think on your own.
These people are more like lab rats. Hear the sound of incoming email, drop everything and ignore the people physically near you and jump to the information. It's so important. More important than real interaction.
