Heads in the Sand

One thing I noticed while in New York was everywhere you went people had headsets on.  Either they were listening to music or having conversations with persons unknown.  There were times when I thought they were having conversations with themselves only to see the blue tooth headphones in their ears.

Traveling in the subway was much worse.  Mostly everyone riding the trains had their head buried in their phones.  Tap, tap, tap as passenger’s texted back and forth or just surfing the web.  How strange it is to see our society so dependent on such a small device.  How did we survive without one less than 20 years ago?  People are sitting across from one another in restaurants not having a conversation but staring intently at their phones.  Is the art of conversation really dead?  When my kids were old enough to get phones the number one rule was no phone at the dinner table.  That was family time and that precious time wasn’t about to be taken away this piece of technology.

There are definitely pros and cons when we dissect the advancement of modern technology.  Alexander Graham Bell would not believe how prevalent his idea of a phone would be in today’s society.  On one subway trip into the city, I sat across a young woman who was on her phone.  For one quick second, she lifted her head to give me the most basic form of human contact – a smile and I smiled back.