Basically, your comment about masses of unconnected people walking around like zombies in a Sci Fi film is just an idiotic generalization made by a fear mongering luddite.
Well, that's going a bit far. If someone doesn't want to participate, that's fine, no one should be forced. I almost feel sorry for kids today that if they want to be "in" the social scene they are almost compelled to keep their gadgets up to date. I don't know if our family could have afforded that.
Personally I love my smartphone because it's what we all wanted when we were kids and went to the movies. The things my iPhone can do are right out of Star Trek. Absolutely amazing.
T3 demands that I not watch these people in person. Rather I should watch them on a Web Cam. From a distance, where humnan emotion and expression is simply not there. Where in fact there is
no human connection. His refusal to even consider my suggestion speaks for itself.
Are Smart Phones "tools" or a life style? You seem to realise that they are tools. T3 is advocating a life style. One in which,
even when you have to opportunity to live in the real world, it's best to watch a Web Cam...
Dave
Face it Dave, you're just an old curmudgeon who loves to vilify any new technologies. In a past century, you would have been the crazy old man who would have bemoaned people putting telephones in their homes. You would have been saying, "Why would I want a telephone in my house? If I wanted to make a telephone call, I would walk down to the local general store and use their public telephone! If people want to reach me, they can send me a letter or a telegraph! These crazy telephone gizmos are going to fry people's brains and turn society into a world of zombies out of a science fiction comic book!" LOL.
Sorry Dave, hate to burst your fear-mongering bubble, but the fabric of society isn't devolving because of smart phones. With every new technological introduction, society simply evolves with it, whether it was the telephone, or the internet, or the cell phone, or the smart phone. Of course, with each of these introductions, there were people who vilified them. And, no, I never advocated a smart phone as a "life style". That's just your own delusional, overblown knee-jerk reaction.