I wish I’d had a camera. Then again probably not, as the two subjects I had wanted to snap a quick picture of might have taken offense if they had happened to notice this older guy walking towards them pointing a some sort of device in their direction–or would they? It doesn’t really matter, I didn’t get a picture. Sorry about that.

After a few afternoon chores the other day, the last day we had any sort of sun in it, I decided to walk over to my wife’s quilt shop and help her close up. Once I had made it up out of our small Clyde River valley to the top of East Main street and started the downhill run to my honey’s shop, I came upon a sight that, for a second or so, took a bit of wind out of my sails.

A couple was walking up the sidewalk towards me, a young couple. Not unusual to see these kinds of things even in these northern territories of the State of Vermont (we do have young people up here you know, not just old farmers who give bad directions to tourists). These couples even hold hands now and then (shock!). What had virtually (but not realistically) stopped me in my tracks was the fact that not only were these two not holding hands (no rule says they have to, of course) but they were each talking on their own cell/smart phones and completely ignoring the person walking beside them.

Hi Beth. Wanna go for a walk? I need to make a couple calls.

Sure, Brian. I need to make a couple myself.

So why bother going for a walk?

A very long time ago (about 10 years before the word ‘weblog’ came into being) I once wrote a short, rather silly thing called ‘Conversation Lost’ in which I lamented thusly and in highly condensed form:

Four score and several years ago there were likely a whole lot more people who actually knew how many years a ‘score’ was and how to properly apply the word into a conversation. Also, there were most likely a hell of a lot more people who knew exactly what a conversation was and moreover, how to properly apply one between two or more people for a reasonable period of time, say more than 43.067 seconds and carry on said conversation without managing to insult anyone by being politically, socially, or sexually incorrect.

Unfortunately, conversation today seems to be limited mostly to “howyadoin?“,” whazup?” and “howzitgoin?” along with the various ingenious replies such as “okay“, “nahmuch“, and “whythehelldonyoumindyerowndambizness!“.

In those days, long before the first blog ever showed up on the then budding Internet thingy, us tech-heads of old used to sit around the office/garage/basement/bar table and talk about what technology might bring in the near future. We could easily imagine tablets and smart phones, multiple core processors, flash drives (SSDs) and all sorts of other neat devices and computer technology we take for granted today, even way back then. We’d sketch them out, build 3D models, talk about the components and supporting resources we’d need to make a certain device like a tablet computer viable, what technology existed back then and what still needed to be developed. If you looked at it from that long ago viewpoint, we young geeks/tech-heads/nerds of old had all the devices of today only said devices were still in our heads rather than in our hands and on our desktops.

What I doubt any one of us could possibly imagine back then was what I witnessed just the other day. The human reaction to all this present instant communication. How what we dreamed about way-back-when would end up causing present day people (younger people?) to still spend their time with each other, like taking a walk together for example, but talking on their respective cell phones rather than to each other. Perhaps if I had been as cynical back then as I am now I might have seen this coming but alas, I was not. Probably a good thing now that think about it.

I have since realized that I’ve seen this kind of phenomenon before just not so up close and personal as having this young couple pass me on the sidewalk yabbering into their respective mobile devices about two completely different subjects while successfully tuning out the fact that there was actually someone walking beside them. Have our priorities shifted so much that our friends and acquaintances who are not with us become more important than the ones who are?

Do I feel completely out of touch with this mobile generation? In a word–yup!

So now I think I’ll take a walk. Feel free to join me if you wish.

Just leave the smart phone home for once would you?