Alone Together

I just lack a few pages finishing this book. Technology advances so quickly that the first half of the tome is already more history than anything else. The second half, though, does address the Brave New World that technology keeps creating in front of us. For Boomers, it's a world where we remember how things "were before", but for many younger people it's a world where they have grown up being alone together.

If parents don't restrict their phone access, they can text friends at two in the morning. In our day, we might have been totally alone at that time. We might have been bored. We might have arisen, restless and written a poem or read a book. But the complicated relationships woven into the fabric of their modern society are shaping problems that will effect us in ways not totally imagined yet---technology always ahead of ethics, law and culture.

Technology was supposed to provide us with more free time, but it has chained many of us to our careers 24/7 putting us always on call. Vacations with the office hovering over your shoulder. It is creating generations of children that have never truly been free of the shadow of their parents. Mom and Dad just a text away. Call? Actual voice phone calls are becoming rare.

Students and teachers at school walk around campus holding their phones ahead of them almost like dousing rods, frequently oblivious to the surroundings. Parents drive kids to school hidden behind tinted windows to avoid being seen. The kids inside watching digital, onboard screens or mincing away on the phone keyboards, white earbuds tucked squarely in place.

I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my system blow
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive

       Imagine Dragons