When we were away for a weekend in the Lakes last year (or maybe the year before) we stopped off in a pub for lunch and were painfully conscious of a family (2 adults & 2 kids) at another table who barely acknowledged each other through the entire meal and each was busy tapping and stroking away at their e-devices while they ate. During the same trip we used the car ferry across Windermere, not because we needed to but as part of the Lakes experience for the kids. On the ferry we saw another family drive on to the boat and again, family of four, switched off the engine and sat there in the car with noses glued to their devices for the whole crossing. They barely looked up to take in the beauty of the surroundings or savour the experience of the moment.
I have a word for this, Tragic! It is a tragedy for modern society and I for one can mot see this trend ending well.....
The new devices just make an old problem worse. I was sent on a business course once in the mid-1980s, stopping at the Haweswater hotel in the Lake District. We got a free afternoon and were dropped off at the car park at the end of the reservoir, and from there walked up into the mountains to do a circuit of Haweswater.
The car park was full of cars. 50% of the cars had people sat in them, the car radios on, the occupants drinking from flasks, reading newspapers and so on. The people from the other cars were having picnics - in the car park! I'm not kidding - they had moved a couple of yards from their cars and that was it! They could have gone a couple of hundred yards up a footpath and enjoyed fantastic elevated views of the reservoir and its surrounding mountains, but they didn't bother ...
I can't see people suddenly turning away from this technology. Those of us who fight against it will increasingly be seen as very old and very odd.
Yes, it IS tragic!
