Have We Become a Society of Driveling, Rude, Multi-tasking, Automatons?

Factoids and observations over the last month have led me to wonder where modern society is headed:

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  Heard on NPR, teenagers send or receive an average of 2,272 text messages per month. That's nearly 80 per day. I can only imagine the content of those text messages....

• In doing research for this post, I ran across a great resource on media use, Media Institute on Media + The Family. See their fact sheet on media use. If you don't have a teen in your household, it will surprise you. We spend more time in front of screens than anything else besides sleeping.  Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography.

• I've been using Twitter on a regular basis since January 2009. Increasingly, the people who are following seem to be focused on drivel, hype, gaming the system, or attracting attention with seductive profile photos. What happened to thoughtful discourse (yes, that can happen in 140 characters) and real people talking about meaningful things (note: quotes from famous people don't count)?

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  A friend emailed me an Ellen Goodman column on multi-tasking as as way of life, and by the way, one that doesn't make us smarter. I see it with my kids as a normal part of staying stimulated--ear buds are a permanent part of my younger son's wardrobe, no matter whether he's watching a Star Trek episode on his computer or unloading the dishwasher or doing his homework. Photo by Schmoomema

While I'm at it, I might as well add in that civility and common respect seem to be on the decline. No one seems to consider it rude to text or Twitter while talking to others.  A recent Wall Street Journal article, Friends Don't Let Friends Bring Up Healthcare, points out our inability to agree to disagree without hard feelings. And I was dismayed by the general insensitivity at my nieces' high school graduation ceremony last spring. A number of women seated behind us talked at normal conversational levels on cell phones throughout the ceremony, as if they were in the privacy of their homes. Photo by kiwanga

If I sound like a middle-aged woman, yearning for a different time, that's not my intention. Rather, I hope that as we continue to use more advanced technology in our daily lives, we learn to become more thoughtful and tolerant, respectful and informed, and ultimately, more human.