The good news is I play Words with Friends and other games with my brother and brother-in-law in California which allows me to interact with them more. Of course, how much interaction is there when I text , "Mangoes for 57 points! Are you kidding me!!! ". Not much of a conversation really.
Then there is the strategic use of a smart phone to ignore someone you didn't want to talk to. You know, you see someone a little ways away at the school band concert, work, or the soccer field and you suddenly have an urge to check e-mail, read an amazing Facebook post that couldn't wait, or just look at your Smart phone screen with your heard down. The Smart Phone can act as your personal "do not disturb button".
Or your Smart phone can be the "I am a doofus button" when you do not turn off your cell phone in a movie theater. Even after the big announcement on the screen reminding you.
Our family vacations have changed now. In the old days when I was young, you would take a bunch of pictures on film, have them developed at the PhotoMat booth in a parking lot, and hope you capture 5 or 6 good images. Now, with digital cameras, you could take 5 or 6 pictures of everything -- normal photo, serious photo, funny face photo, jump in the air photo -- and then check the viewer window right away to make sure you got a good photo before you move on. Of course, most of us rarely print any of these photos. And now when we go on vacation and I just want to get a picture of my family standing in front of the Hollywood sign or a pretty beach, we have to take it on a camera and three deifferent iPhones and then my kids have to post it to instagram right away to see how many likes they get. The new rule in our family after the last vacation was no instagram until after 8:00pm.
A Smart Phone can expand your communication with the rest of the human race or block it out as you try to get to the next level in Candy Crush. It is all how you use the tool.
