Most mornings, when I am enduring the tram ride to work, I notice that the vast majority of my fellow commuters* are somehow 'tuned out' of what is going on around them. Either they are tickling their smartphones, their ears are plugged into some music device or they are lost in an e-reader.
Somehow, as a people, we seem to have lost the desire or ability to connect to the environment immediately around us. Preferring instead to talk to someone miles away who isn't even a good enough friend to be with them in person. Personally, I would prefer to witness and react appropriately to what is going on around me. The driver's announcement being a convenient case in point this morning. The line was down for a while. Not that most of my fellow passengers would realise, as it was back up again fairly soon.
This doesn't just happen in the mornings, either. At any time of day, the number of people around me either literally or figuratively 'plugged in' to some electronic device, draining their attention, is considerable.
I read something on a lifting site that said, "If you've got time to Facebook, then you've got time to train...". This paraphrasing my earlier sentiments that I would now rather train than watch something I don't particularly like on tv.
What do each of us actually get from spending more time online? The illusion of a social life? How social are you if you hardly ever actually see your friends? If I train, it might not be very rock and roll, repeating the same action again and again ad nauseam. But I do get something at the end of it all - eventually.
That's why I'm shifting more and more of my endeavours into 'meatspace' (and why I'm posting on here less and less - sorry!)
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