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| TEXAS SUSET |
Pads, pods, E-books, nooks,computers. Everyone has their noses stuck in them and their eyes glued to them, even during Christmas. Under the tree, on the couch, at the dinner table. Phones announce themselves with irritating frequency (they no longer ring, they offer snippets of symphonies, they honk, and lately they "quack" in recognition of the Duck Dynasty affair). Each is twittering and tweeting everyone in the world while ignoring the person sitting next to them. Want to ask someone to pass the gravy? Try a tweet.
Everyone from six to sixty is playing games on a computer, pad or smart phone. Most of these apologias for entertainment constantly emit irritating, meaningless noises. And I thought TV was a conversation killer!
Speaking of which, I remember when family and friends would talk to each other while actually looking at one another, a thing which evidently is now socially taboo. After dinner over a lingering cup of coffee, or later in the living room over a beer. Talk about social issues, politics, current events, even, believe it or not, religion. To talk...to smile, to laugh, perhaps to argue or shed a tear in remembrance of a loved one.
Now we hesitate to communicate with each other directly, face to face, for fear we may offend each other's sensibilities by saying what we think, what we believe, or by what means and devices we lead our lives. Each of us is afraid to let others see who and what we really are, for fear they may disapprove and stop tweeting us, and then our phones would no longer blatt and chime and quack and we might have to do or think something useful. Or just be quiet.
People no longer just possess pads and pods and such devices. They live in them, are contained by them. All sit in their Me-Pods, like snails and turtles in their shells, or like the octopus, emerging from its secret lair place only to feed.
Anyway, I won't be twittering, tweeting or posting for a while. I am retreating to my Me-pod.
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