My friend, Katie (@KatieWPhoto), pointed out an interesting scene as we were riding the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island. “Every single person I can see right now is heads down with their face in an electronic device”, she said, more loudly than I was comfortable with.  Nobody heard her, or if they did, nobody looked up from their screen or shed their headphones to pay any attention.

Nobody pays any attention.

I certainly don’t.  I am always busy with something else I’m doing to notice anybody else.  I sometimes think that it’s just the New Yorker in me coming out, but in New York, people were absorbed in the news, or a book, or just looking around being aware of their surroundings.  Devices like Kindle and iPad or iPhone are supposed to enhance our reality, not replace it.  We’re bold enough on LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter to follow someone else and to comment on what they have to say…even to say something original ourselves, but surely this is only supposed to be a reflection of real life interaction, not a window into a completely separate world lived entirely in the Matrix.  Is that where we are headed?

What are we becoming?