Had an adventure on Monday.  Flew to the Midwest on an errand for a client and then returned home that night. All day in the airport. Not a big deal. But for a guy who spends most of his time in his truck making stops in and around Cave Creek/Carefree it was a significant departure from my normal routine.  Think the experience was punctuated by the fact that I haven’t flown anywhere in 3+ years.  Things have changed.

Believe the airport is a magnification of society. Get a better snapshot of life when it’s moving faster. With that, the cultural addiction/dependence on technology was most apparent. At the gate there was a bar and not only did every seat at the bar have a tablet/ipad (can’t tell the difference?), but almost the entire waiting/seating area was equipped with them as well, for a price of course. Also this bar area contained 4-5 other gates. At one point, there was maybe 400 or so people waiting to board flights and at least 95% of eyes were glued to smart phones. Just standing back, it was quite a sight. ‘Haven’t seen this before?’ Will admit at this point in life I am a bit of a country bum-kin. But just eye-ball’n the situation, doesn’t seem sustainable.

I understand that some of you are asking ‘What’s the big deal T? Things have been this way for awhile.’ Here’s the big deal. This is a huge departure from us as social beings. Human’s glued to screens, obsessively.  Businesses catering to humans glued to screens.  I’m not putting technology down.  And I’m not saying things were better back in the day (things were better back in the day). But I am asking this,  “What is the latent or unintended consequence of a generation of people burying their heads in technology?” There is no precedent for this. We used to hear all the time that we should limit our television time to a hour or two a day.  In modern times, I have heard parents talk about limiting their children’s “screen time.” But what about adults? Who’s monitoring your screen time?

As far as ‘unintended consequences, ‘ it’s been my experience that when publicly someone has their head buried in a screen and then looks up at someone passing by, they tend to give the blank ‘look-em up and down’ and then return their head to screen.  Happens all the time. It’s lame. It makes for a lame culture.

One last thing before I get off my soap-box and return to blogging about insects and trucks. About 8 years ago my wife and I made the decision to have a boundary with technology.  For awhile we didn’t even have the world wide web (internet).  We are not that extreme anymore, but still have set boundaries.  For me it was necessary.  I was someone who was trying desperately to keep up with it all, partly because I’m not tech-savvy and it felt like if I didn’t, I’d never be able to catch up.  But eventually I was just lost and distracted. Didn’t know who I was. Didn’t know what I stood for.  Just kinda waiting for the next big thing. No longer, had to put my foot down. Tuned out and turned on. Now, I’m just who I am. Keep it simple. And… Life is better; it tastes better, smells better, feels better, kicks ass.

And that’s all I have to say about that.