Was shopping at Costco today, which is always a life-threatening scenario with little people mindlessly thrusting long carts into crowds of uncarted shoppers. Got to the end of an aisle and started to turn the corner (slowly, of course, for survival purposes). Headed toward me, inches away, a woman with an empty cart who sees me and stops. Stops to check her hand-held screen to punch out some ultra-significant message to the e-universe, leaving me nowhere to go, but to wait for her selfish, umbilical moment to conclude in her own totally isolated, alienated e-world unto herself. (As McLuhan suggested, we will/have become extensions of our own extensions/machines.)
At the medical lab, I asked the technician: Do people insult you as you are about to take blood to answer their so-important/essential phones. She said Yes, despite all the signage advising the opposite. Same story with my massage therapist and doctor at the mediclinic. (The doctor walks out and moves on to the next patient. Good for him. Patient has priorities, so does the doctor.)
Rudeness and self-centeredness everywhere more than ever. No perspective. No sense of other and the insults to other. E-rubes lost in their own alienated/alienating, totally distracted/distracting e-worlds.
I like the approach taken by a few groups of diners who throw their phones into the middle of the table; then the first person who weakens and surrenders to umbilical desire and picks up gets the bill! We need far more of these constructive, creative counter-moves and counter-responses to all this selfish, alienating e-behaviors and habits. The Pythons, B.F. Skinner and Karen Pryor who wrote Don’t Shoot the Dog! are badly needed on today’s behavior modification battlefield front. A combination of common sense, no-nonsense approach, and zero tolerance would be appreciated in dealing with the masses of em/d-dopes ‘out there’ today.
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Note: So long second nature for me; for anyone else–EM=Electronic Media; D=Digital