I Am Legend
The latest study on teen usage of electronic devices found that they spend over 9 hours a day texting, gaming, video watching and net surfing. And this is when they’re not in school. I can only assume teenage crime rates have dropped to near zero. When would they have time to shoplift? Or to plan a robbery?
Any way you slice it, this is one helluva lot of time spent on social media and the rest. More time than school, more time than … well, anything. Except maybe breathing. This is good news for Apple, Google , Samsung and Facebook. To call it a national epidemic, well, let’s not be Alarmists. To think of it as a national addiction, c’mon, we’ve had TV for most of our lifetimes.
One of my neighbors yesterday told me he’d bought a cellphone. I said say it ain’t so, Joe. Not you! He grinned the way a convert to Jesus grins, sins washed, iniquities atoned, born again, fresh start, brave new world. He told me the great deal he got — meaning I should haul right down and get one too. Just spreading the Good News, I guess, proselytizing the ignorant. You better believe I’ll be checking under the bed tonight for alien pods.
Join the Hive. Accept the Borg. Sign up on Facebook. Carry a cell. I’m the Last Holdout on the South End now, an anachronistic curmudgeon with one foot in the 19th Century, still got a phone plugged to the wall of my cave. Outside the cave I’m disconnected. Satellites can’t reach me, friends and telemarketers can’t call me, the mizzus has to holler or just let it go til I stroll back in. At the grocery store I have to make decisions without outside help. Do you want the pitted olives or the unpitted, honey?
Sure it’s lonely, course it’s eerily quiet, damn right it’s a life of isolation. Just the way I like it.
Am I legend? Naw, I’m just a living fossil, that’s all.
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