How technology impacts social relationships and society

Imagine you're in the hospital. You were in a car accident. Your car is totaled, you've been in intensive-care for a couple days and you're just now able to gather your thoughts about the totality of your situation. The nurse hands you your cell phone and other personal items that were found at the scene of the accident.

You pick up your cell phone to call a close friend to tell them what has happened to you. But, because your friend normally "screens" their calls - your call is just added to a long list of calls they need to respond to. Your "friend" insists on calling you "later", when they "have more time". You keep calling people. No one is answering their phone. All you get are these creepy "voice-messaging systems" telling you to press "one" for more options. Finally - you give up in disgust and feel even worse for having tried to connect with your friends.

The above anecdote is just one example of what can (and often does) happen to millions of people on a daily basis. While the above example is a trivial one, it does illustrate how cell phones can become barriers to communication. Phones used to be simple. Someone calls - the phone would ring and we "had" to pick up the phone just to see who was calling. We found out all the other information such as "what for" and other information after we picked up the receiver. Now days, we already know "who" is calling before we pick up the phone. If certain people call us who we don't necessarily like too much, we can ignore them. If a creditor constantly calls - we can ignore them too. We may have more privacy with cell phones, but that privacy comes at a potential cost.

Never mind the dangers of driving while talking on the cell phone. Never mind the rude-ness of talking loudly in public. These are just some of the annoyances that have come with the modern cell phone. Now days people "tweet" and "text" constantly. Now I consider myself a pretty "tech savvy" fella, but I've NEVER texted, EVER! I refuse to text. If I want to talk to someone, I will call them, email them or talk to them face-to-face.

I think technology is making people more lonely. I think people are spending too much time behind the computer, laptop, ipod, ipad, cell phone, nintendo, and television that we're isolating ourselves from one another. We're building cocoons around ourselves. All this "MySpace" & "Facebook" crap - it's all contributing to the "decay" or our society. I'm saying this - as someone who loves technology. I'm saying this as someone who loves to have fun, party and push the envelope. However, I see some unnerving things happening in our society as a result of a "glutinous" use of technology.