Reflections of an Unwitting Technoholic

By Barbara Britton Jones 

January 2010

I know you’ve seen them; they are everywhere! Whether you’re on a crowded subway in a large city, going about your business in a small town, driving on a highway, sitting on a plane or shopping for groceries or some other necessary commodity, they are all around you. In case you’re wondering, I’m talking about the scores of nameless, faceless individuals who are so mesmerized by their techno-toys of choice that they are oblivious to their immediate surroundings. 

It’s an interesting phenomenon that is not perceptibly driven by any common factor like age, gender, ethnicity or geography. There are different varieties of these techno-types. My favorites include the thumb gymnasts, whose attention is fixed on small handheld devices while their thumbs move effortlessly to send a text message or play a video game. I’m always amused when I see people staring blankly at nothing in particular, only to realize they have ear buds in their ears with an almost unnoticeable cord leading to a well-concealed mp3 player. The Bluetooth user is yet another story. Watching him use hand gestures and facial expressions, as if the other person on the phone can see, while passersby wonder if he is insane, is truly entertaining.

For those of us old enough to remember the early 1980s, it’s safe to say we’ve come a long way. Back then, you could walk through a mall or down a crowded street and find people actually engaging each other in conversation. Passersby greeted each other, if only with a smile or a nod of the head. In order to make a phone call, you needed to find a phone booth or public pay phone, usually secreted on some out-of-the-way street corner or hanging on a not too obvious wall. Remember those?

The only time you took or saw photos being taken was at a gathering of family and/or friends, if there were tourists around or you attended an event that included a photographer. In those days, videos games were played in arcades.