Missing the World

In recent years I have noticed a distinct trend of more and more people in the street, on the 'bus, in shops or wherever spending seemingly every moment they have 'living in the 'phone' as I term it.

If they're not speaking, they're texting or similar, almost completely oblivious to the world around them.

It seems to me to be a very sad kind of life, when passing through the world but experiencing next to nothing of it. I have never made that mistake, even when treading a route or taking a 'bus or rail journey that I have done perhaps hundreds of times before.

Every time, it is for me a new and fresh experience, to be relished and not missed.

It was (and is) bad enough in modern society with Walkman-type gadgets, now replaced by iPod-type devices; but with 'phones it takes all the user's attention away from the world outside that little bubble, not just the ears...

I wonder what would happen if the entire mobile 'phone failed and it took at least a week to get it back up and running. Would these people re-join the rest of us on Planet Earth? I suspect not: they'd be lost for the duration; and as soon as it was restored there'd be million of text messages flying around along the lines of...

"gr8 too b txtng agin LOLOL"

Believe me: I see such messages from time to time, including on Twitter, usually from teen and twenty-something females, when they happen to include a word that one of my standing searches finds. For example, there's a recent arrival on Twitter who calls herself Waybuloo_ (why?) – so I now have to wade through all her dross along such lines, and from those responding, on a regular basis.