Am I already a grumpy old man?

I wake up in the morning and check my email. Text or voicemail next. Then a quick check of friends' away messages and the news. I get ready in the morning, throw my cell phone in my pocket and head out for the day. At either school or work, I am around a computer, so my email is open all day. If I think of a funny quote I text it to a friend. Thanks to phantom limb, I am aware of my cell phone all day.

Am I addicted to something?

At risk of Luddite shame, maybe all of this technology linking us together is not so good for us after all? Or maybe just me. Since we humans are quite a mocking animal, I surmise I am not alone.

I thought of this while sitting with a group of friends. This cell phone from China is not what it was supposed to be (although what was I to expect from a website in half English, half squiggly?), so I was sitting there with a brick in my pocket flashing "no service." Friends intermittently get text messages. We banter. All the while I noticed a slight disconnect from my peers. Like everyone was not all there. And I realized it is because of these cell phones, right? (It is either that or me, and I am not ready to admit I have achieved pariah status.) Now in groups of friends, we are not just talking with each other. Instead we have all of these mini conversations going on in our heads with our girlfriend, social rival, whatever. Of course this has been the case since we developed the ability to think about other people, but don’t our minds worry more if the scenario causing worry is more likely to happen? What if you know your boyfriend is furious at you? Doesn’t the knowledge that you can, at any moment, receive a message from anyone keep you on your toes a little bit more? Does that bit more of anxiety contribute to some other emotion, exacerbated by some other event, ultimately turning into some disastrous feedback loop? Wasn’t that silly ass Ashton Kucher in a movie about this? (Lots of questions today. Hope you got them all right.)

It seems these devices connecting us to everyone we know are paradoxically making us more alone in our thoughts while with others. Maybe society's view of social interaction is merely transforming from real to the digital world. I am guessing this is not yet the case because I still think giant douchebag when I see someone with a million friends on facebook. What will groups of friends sitting at bars look like in 30 years? I wonder if they will speak to each other at all. It is a shame we are going to cast aside many millennia of nature figuring out the intricate differences in speech inflections and facial contortions in favor of trying to figure out if ;) meant she was being sarcastic.