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That is partially true, but we get the spectrum for sure.

Personally, I know I likely come across hostile to technology such as solar power, wind power, and electric cars.

It isn’t because I don’t like them or like the concept. I wish they were things that worked well enough to stand on their own. If they had an electric car whose range and performance closely matched regular vehicles at even a somewhat disadvantaged price point, I would embrace it.

What irks me to no end is my tax money being used to shove this down our throat “for our own good”.

And I admit, my whole life, I was an early adopter of technology (with the exception of cell phones). I pushed technology, PCs, digital cameras, speech recognition, all kinds of things.

Many people still tell me I was the first person they knew who not only had a personal computer, but did useful things with it and inspired them to use the technology.

But I have had serious reservations for some time, seeing the negative effects that technology has had on our society.

Don’t get me wrong. I love having thousands of my music albums at my fingertips. I love going on the Internet and getting information quickly, and spending time at places like Free Republic.

But I hate seeing people whose lives are taken over by this.

I saw three cars in a row pass me on the highway, and all of them were in the fast lane with their heads down texting.

I saw a family at a hotel having breakfast, all four of them sitting at the table, their faces glued to their phones.

I go to parties, and people are texting or doing something on their phones rather than interacting with each other.

I know parents who are so tied to their kids by their phones it is alarming to me.

It is the constant feeling that people just aren’t there. They are somewhere else, anywhere else, and not in the moment.

My wife and I were driving home from Boston a couple of years ago, and a particular event stuck with me. It was a wonderful early spring evening, and we were crossing over the Massachusetts Turnpike at the end of Newbury Street near the Tower Records building (now defunct)

As we passed the Tower Records building, there were perhaps 30 people standing there, probably waiting for a bus. Every single one of them stood with one palm up cradling a phone, their anonymous faces reflecting the faint light of their phone as they gazed down at it. Their heads were all inclined at the same angle. They could have been mannequins. All of them nearly completely motionless in a trance-like state of immobility.

Just gazing down.

What really struck me in a sad and negative way was...it was a beautiful night. You know that time of night when the sun has gone down, and the horizon has that orange, to pink to cobalt blue gradation, and the trees, not yet bearing leaves, are starkly silhouetted in black against that beautiful sky? That time of night. To the left, the giant Citgo sign was lit up, doing its characteristic light show.

There was so much going on. So much beauty. So much life. So much happening. But these 30 people were completely and totally oblivious to it all. They saw nothing but that rectangular screen in their hand.

There was something very, very sad about that, and it has stuck with me.