I’d say it’s a generational thing except for the fact that you who are complaining so bitterly are right this very moment on a computer and obviously know how to use one well enough. And your “family” is probably fellow Freepers, especially if you are older and more homebound. Otherwise you would be at home twiddling your thumbs. Oh, that’s right, you have those other “modern” inventions such as the telephone, radio and TV to communicate with, listen to, or watch. Stop using them so that you can truly be isolated from humanity.
By the way, you sound just like that good old Luddite, Bill O’Reilly on Fox Cable TV. I’m sure that will make you happy.
Humanity is not a display on a gadget, and if that is your entire focus, you are already isolated from humanity--even while you claim to be "connected".
I’d say it’s a generational thing except for the fact that you who are complaining so bitterly are right this very moment on a computer and obviously know how to use one well enough.
If pulling out in front of semi trucks is a "generational thing", if running into fixed objects on foot is a "generational thing", sure.
I have been using computers since the '70s. I know, compared to many here I am a latecomer.
I am a great grandfather, a geologist, and use computers for work (drilling horizontal wells would be a lot slower and harder without them). What I have noticed is the trend from useable software, bare bones but fully functional for my purposes, to graphic garbaged distraction fests which really are more difficult to work with, even to the point of hiding fundamental command menus behind graphics.
Let's get this straight, too, I use these machines to send tremendous amounts of data to clients and other people, they are wonderful. So is a claw hammer, a chainsaw, and a hydraulic jack, each in its place. It's a tool.
But when your life gets so wrapped up in the little screen that you fail to notice you run a red light in front of a tanker full of crude oil, your smart phone looks pretty dumb at the moment of contact.
How good is your kid's cell phone if they don't have it on (battery down), or if they just don't answer?
How much do you communicate with people with your TV?
Your radio?
I have a landline in case of severe storms, and a cell phone to use as a phone, when the towers are in range and functioning (yes, I am routinely in areas where there is no signal, even with adjustable gain multiband boosters and directional antennae).
So let me turn it around, 'cause I have seen grandkids sit at my table and text each other with their smartphones; when was the last time you had just a voice conversation with someone not immediate family lasting longer than hihowareya, fine, bye?
Maybe because I am a great grandpa I have seen people change, maybe that is just a question of my perspective, but I recall without so much as a record player sitting in my wife's grandmother's kitchen (the largest room in her house) on Saturday nights with most of her numerous uncles and extended family, a couple guitars, a fiddle, sometimes someone with a banjo or mandolin and having a darned good time not only catching up on all the local news that hadn't made the paper, but discussing ideas, swapping stories, and generally having fun.
We needed neither radio, microwave, cell phone, or computer to do that, and if the power went out, we'd just light a lantern or two and keep going.
I know what people don't even know they are missing.
Maybe y'all wouldn't have liked it anyway.
I have been through race riots and other not so fun human interactions, and all I can say is you may be seeing an image but you aren't there.
I think it is really funny that you think it has to be all one way or all the other, a typically Liberal form of hyperbole. I'm saying there is a time and place for most everything, and that some of it is out of place and running overtime.
As for BOR, I don't watch him, I think he's an ass. I really don't think you understood my point if you are comparing me to him, but that requires more than 'U no WTF sup' levels of English comprehension.