I had an old buddy in town over Easter weekend.  He came out from back East for a wedding in Los Angeles and then made the trip down to San Diego to visit a bunch of us guys.  My one buddy had an Easter Brunch at his house so everyone could be together, kids and all. 

Back in the day, we were a crew of ten strong.  We all moved from back East and did everything together.  We worked together, played together and even lived together.  Probably close to 12-13 years of just the guys.  One by one, we married, had children and starting moving away.  We all try to keep in touch, but everyone’s schedules are different now.  If you add kids to the mix, it’s an entirely different schedule!

Thanks to technology, we are able to keep in touch better than before.  We can Skype and never have to see them in person! LOL.

So my one buddy had an Easter brunch.  Great food, drinks, the kids playing and great conversation.   All of a sudden we had a buddy arrive that we hadn’t seen in a while.  We all said our hellos and settled back down to what we were doing when all of a sudden, I noticed that he had a laptop or one of the new notebooks with him.  He had set the thing down and had a surfing video playing as he was visiting with us.  He would glance over at it from time to time and then return to the visit. How tacky I thought!  Some of us had our phones out to take picture or record a video or to show pictures but no one else was paying attention to another even while they attended this one.

So later that evening, my buddy in town came by for a visit and wasn’t even here five minutes before he got his phone out and proceeded to text someone as we were talking.  I then realized that he was having a conversation with someone else while visiting with me and my family.  How cool, he can be two places at once!  Just kidding! When he was done, I thought “cool, we can catch up now” as he started checking emails.  As he was leaving I hugged him and said “it was great to see you!”  That was all I did, was to see him!

I also remember my wife and I attending a house warming party where these two Jr. High aged girls were there with the one girl’s parents.  They were hanging out together while texting other people.  I could also swear that they were texting each other at some point. That was actually the first time I witnessed texting up close.  I couldn’t believe what these girls were doing.  If they would rather chat with someone else, why not just go hangout with them?

The point here folks is that, although technology may allow society to get closer to one another, it has become a distraction with getting up close and personal.  It’s taking away from our basic need of human interaction.  If we don’t acknowledge this, society will turn into a bunch of social lepers.

I have to go now, someone is texting me.