Communication Disintegration

My spelling skills have gone down the proverbial drain. Something I used to pride myself on, I now double check my texts and quick Google search words to make sure their spelling is correct. We all make mistakes from time to time and often someone like me who is a speedtastic-typist, will occasionally spell a word the way it sounds as it's pouring out of my brain and onto paper (yes I still use it) or the new document I've opened in Microsoft Word. Rereading my work surprises me in a "Oh no you didn't!" sort of way. This has gotta stop. Texting has become my favorite and most often used form of a communication. I so rarely call and speak to someone on the phone that I actually get anxiety when I get phone calls. My internal reaction is somewhere along the lines of "Oh shit, that thing actually rings?!...You mean to say...I can speak into it and hear out of it?! No way!"...then I let the call go to voicemail. Cell phone and computer usage has infiltrated so much of our lives these days. I struggle to find a friend who does NOT have an Iphone/Ipad/Itouch that they are constantly defaulting to, for entertainment, communication, Google searches and any other trillion thing those lil' gadgets are capable of. I am not innocent in the communication breakdown...I text. I have Facebook and I check it more than is ever necessary and I've used Ipads before and think they're pretty cool. But I'm beginning to think that all of the computer and cell phone use is actually hurting us as human beings. I remember the day when I turned sixteen and was handed a cell phone which was purely for emergency purposes to use in my rockin' maroon '91 Jetta that was my first pride and joy. Sure the cell phone weighed about a pound and was concrete grey with an antenna that NASA could probably pinpoint from space...but it really was just for emergencies (or to call my parents and say that I wouldn't make curfew...every time I had a curfew). Now kids are given phones (Internet capable) at the age of 10. What the hell do kids need cell phones for at that age? If they're in school...they're in school. There is a phone in every single classroom, nurses office, principals office, main office...any office...in a school. Why does a kid need to tote a cell phone around? It just gives other kids one more outlet to bully and make fun of the weaker of the population. You now have to have the coolest phone that has the best apps and the most expensive data plan in order to be the cat's meow, all before puberty hits...and what parent ever wants to have their puberty ridden child making calls and texting every hour of the day. Can you just imagine the things that the lil nuggets are saying to each other as their hormonal groins scream at them to act out? Totally and completely unnecessary. As adults many of us carry around our cell phones everywhere we go in our purse or pocket. God forbid someone is unable to reach or respond while you are strolling down the beach or running into the grocery store. Who wants to be cell-less while pumping gas and using the restroom...I mean really? What level has the insanity gotten to? I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine and I was discussing how I am going to downgrade my phone. I have a Blackberry that eats 100$ of my money each month so that I can text and check Facebook as much as my heart desires...and am beginning to see how much money is being thrown away. This whole "data plan" business is ridiculous. The friends response was "I could NEVER do that!" to downgrading to a less "smart" phone. That response sounded more like a crack addict being asked to stop using than an intelligent adult letting go of the Iphone. It both surprised me and made me think....how deeply attached many of us are to the instant connection of the Internet. I spent time with a group of friends recently and at one point I stood up to make a drink and looked around the room and every single person in the room was looking at his or her respective phone. There has got to be a problem here. If people are getting lazy to the point where they'd rather see the latest Facebook post instead of asking the friend next to them how their day was, something is seriously lacking. Group dinners, gatherings and parties are all for the mingling of people and ideas as well as the improving and maintaining of interpersonal connection...how do we learn to interact and build really great relationships with people if half of their brain has slowed to the point where only staring at cell phones and computers will do? I realize that some people out there "need" the phone because they are on-call or have some extreme sort of situation that makes them prone to emergency phone calls, or maybe parents of small children being watched by a sitter...yes I'd keep my phone by me for these reasons. But everything else? Can we stop it? Can we have an entire party happen where not one person checks their phone repeatedly or mentions Facebook or the Internet? Is it possible? What did we do before Facebook? What did our lives consist of before texting became the most widely used form of communication? I'll tell you what we did. We lived. We danced. We laughed. We spoke. We hugged. We wrote. We walked. We loved. We learned about each other. Let's go back...way back...back when Words With Friends...was actually, words with friends.