Dunno ’bout you, but I’ve found it is easier to be all alone than to be alone with a room full of electronics junkies. You see them everywhere – E-Zombies mindlessly staring into cell phones and laptops – hyper focused on a whole lot of nothing if you ask me. I’m talking people – friends, family, and other forms of human protoplasm you sit in a room with who just cannot put their electronic devices down long enough to strike up a conversation.
They just cannot be bothered.
In fact, it has arrived at a point where I believe you could yell “fire!” and that still wouldn’t distract them from their devices. It is like you aren’t even there. I’ve explained to family why it is offensive to me only to receive endless justification and denial. They don’t understand what all the concern is about. It becomes bitter and unpleasant at times. That’s how sick and addictive we’ve become.
E-Zombies don’t like distraction.
We’ve become so addicted to our cell phones to where blind panic sets in whenever we cannot find them. It’s like a pacifier a baby loses out of a crib. Makes them crazy. Our entire lives have become wrapped up in handheld devices. And – if we’re wrapped up in social media venues like Facebook or X, it is upsetting to us when we don’t get a prompt response or a “Like” right away. I’ve had people text me in less than five minutes with “Where are you?!”
Are you kidding me?
I am a cell phone/social media addict too. So much time is spent in social media, news and gossip that nothing gets done. Oil changes get missed. The house becomes one hot mess. A friend moves away or dies, and it goes unnoticed. Assignments and important appointments get missed. I become so engrossed I forget to go to the bathroom until bladder discomfort becomes unbearable.
To be honest with you, I’ve become…well…just done with it. If you’re paying attention to the world around you, you begin to see life spiraling out of control because so much has been missed. The house becomes a wreck and the refrigerator becomes bare. This is warped behavior. I sit here in the dawn’s early light of a Saturday morning wondering of the consequences of the neglect caused by the intense and narrow focus of being an E-Zombie.
How many friendships are lost from this reality disconnect? What the divorce rate of E-Zombies? How long is it before it is noticed a buddy walked away or a marital partner because so disenchanted they just quietly walked away and left a note? Scratch the note idea – you’d better text them because they will never see the note.
Boomer Journey... 
Never bothered with Facebook or the rest. Someone told me I needed to be on LinkedIn, Facebook for the unemployed. It dredged up enough “Hey! What the hell ya doin’?” from places I left behind on purpose. The whole concept of “digital lives” relies on artificial feedback for half-assed self promotion. If your record or book or cliche “art” was all that you’d have a contract or a job as a creative for $. But all the like minded folks in the circle of “friends” tell you you’re the next Hammett or Jane Austen or your “poetry” isn’t worse than a Hallmark card. Props to those who can stomach it, but I understand. IF I don’t take my grandson’s phone away from him on the way out he’ll 1) walk into the door, 2) fail to close the door, 3) choose games over food, 4) Chores? 5) fold his head in total dejection when the power’s gone…He can take the world’s shortest, and least productive shower and would hold the phone out the shower door while the shower misses all but his feet. Oh well. I see it all the time. What the heck does anybody need their phone in their hand and buds in their ears for on a dog walk? So disconnected looking for artificial feedback they wouldn’t know who they were without a device…
LikeLike