Last night walking home from the gallery I spied through the window of a resteraunt a young girl with her head on her fathers shoulder, which I thought how sweet… as I walked a few more steps I realized the father actually was texting or surfing and the child looked on forlornly. Across the table the mother was also texting/surfing and the child next to her starred out into space …bored. Out to a family dinner but unable to communicate with each other…Is this social?
Early in the day I read on the net (yes I live on it) that a man was shot and killed while texting in a movie theater… I hate to admit my first response was in favor of the gunman thou second thoughts were that was a bit severe. It excused the rude moviegoer as texting to his daughter and or babysitter, OMG what did parents do before texting? Now in a movie I prefer people not to be social during the movie but after… so for me no texting and no talking would be enough social.
I also saw a wonderful video that came up on my twitter (yes I do that to) that chronicled the day in this young woman’s life showing how much texting was done. It was done showing the irony in the lack of social interaction. You can find at I forgot my iphone . Some of the comments compared texting to the reaction to TV in the early years. As my mother used to say, “TV will rot your brains go read a book”. Will our grandchildren look back and laugh at our obsession with the internet or will their social skills lack the basic need to communicate at all?
