* everyone is connected to their digital devices rather than other people
* Count the folks using their devices on the train or buss or walking down the sidewalk or, worse, crossing the street obvious to drivers who themselves are bouncing back and forth between the road and their digital distractor.
* there is no such things as hanging out with friends and having a actual conversation – it’s online
* people now choose to virtual friends – They have traded human friends for Facebook friends. Instead of being present at the dinner table, they are lost in their phones.
* technology allows us to be “alone together.” Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. We want to customize our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party.
* new generations – I spend the summers at a cottage on Cape Cod, and for decades I walked the same dunes that Thoreau once walked. Not too long ago, people walked with their heads up, looking at the water, the sky, the sand and at one another, talking. Now they often walk with their heads down, typing. Even when they are with friends, partners, children, everyone is on their own devices.