Do you all remember the day when you'd go to the bus stop, talk to all your neighborhood friends before the bus came, then hop on the bus and catch up with everyone else? Those were good days, and hanging out at the bus stop was kinda fun. I usually think of the Wonder Years' opening montage, when Kevin, Paul, and Winnie are all waiting for the bus everyday.
Anyway, I'm not writing this as a nostalgic piece on the wonders of the bus stop. God knows I had enough miserable days getting up early to make it there on time. The reason I'm writing this is because of what I saw on my way to work today. I was driving through one of the local neighborhoods when I saw about 7 high school kids waiting for the bus. Not one of those kids was talking to the other kids. Complete and utter silence. Keep in mind, these kids all must live with 500 feet of each other. Yet while they all stand next to each other everyday for 10 minutes, they refuse to talk to each other.
It seems like I get a reminder everyday how as our society becomes more "connected" we become increasingly disconnected. Tools like AIM, Facebook, Myspace, and text messaging have made it extremely easy for kids to communicate without really communicating. We're raising a generation of kids who are going to have serious social issues. Do kids even go outside to play anymore? Or has Guitar Hero and the Internet made playing outside an obsolete activity? Real human interaction, real human emotion, can only be truly seen and felt on a face-to-face, human-to-human level. This generation, and possibly the next few generations, are or will be completely devoid of the full human experience for the first time since when, the Ice Age? I shudder when thinking of the consequences.
1 comment:
i think you're reading too much into it. maybe they just don't like each other. there were days when no one at my bus stop talked. if anything, new technology makes us closer to a small grouper of individuals but that's the direction this country has been heading for the last 150 years.
think about it...people use to always be close (like extended family) to their neighbors/community because that's really all you had. with automobiles, its now easier to see family or other friends. now, you may only kinda know your neighbors. this on a much much smaller scale is what you're saying (that is, i don't think social tools like facebook have the impact of automobiles). even if they did, i truly believe people cannot find enjoyment equal to that of other human company.
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