c-BS...........is this the most important news ever? I cancelled your broadcast long ago....you are scum.

When you see me in a store with my headphones in one ear, I am probably listening to a book. I have precious little time to read, and when I am alone, doing an errand, it is a good time. Must admit I don't text much, a couple of times a month, and hate to talk on the thing.

I do not like to talk on the phone. Cell or land line so I spend almost no time chatting with anyone. I also only text my son when necessary. That might mean 5 times a week, maybe. I cannot imagine hours and hours talking and 3200 text messages. I have followed people through the grocery store for 40 mins to an hour and they haven't stopped talking to someone on the phone. I do not do the social network either. I work in a school library and see approximately 600 students a day. That is enough human contact for me.

I'm with you, #3. I like my solitude when I can get it. I wonder of today's society would be able to handle life with a lot of silence. I suspect it would be a dreadfully hard adjustment (say if electricity was out for any length of time).

Too many people need watching in public. I'm a big fan of situational awareness.

Self absorbed. Sorry state of humanity when you cannot sit down as a family without electronic devices for the time it takes to eat a meal.

You cannot uninvent something that has been invented....

3200 text messages a month?

That's about 100 a day. Like speaking 100 sentences. Nobody would consider speaking 100 sentences in a day 'abnormal'.

I like my cell phone, but I don't text. I talk, and that only when I need to.

Families need no-tech rules for mealtime, car-time, shopping, and family gatherings. Enforce it! When I was growing up (50's) there were times we weren't allowed to bing comic books or games or cards. Same principle: teach kids how not to be RUDE to one another! Simple!
I've told my adult kids this and they are trying, with their kids.

I like text. I don't like to talk on the phone and I like to have a record I can go back to. I'm not an idiot who texts walking down a street or while driving, nor do I sit around texting to people all day long instead of having verbal interactions.

Surely there can be a happy medium.

The text while driving types are slowly eliminating themselves from the gene pool.

Some Americans have developed an obsession for "connectedness". The drive for continual approval and assurance from others via Facebook, Twitter, etc. may be
another facet of this "life-sharing" activity. Did Americans' grandparents DIE simply because they could not be "in the loop" on a real-time basis? ... not quite.
Some might even argue argue that their lives were richer for not being "chatterboxes" and not voicing their every trivial thought. The above will garner knee-jerk negative reaction from some ... likely they are the worst afflicted.

What a pitiful state humanity has come to, lives dominated by triviality.As poster#7 has said you can't uninvent what has been invented. The remaining option with regard to cell phones is self control and politeness.

#10, I agree. We never watched TV during dinner when I was growing up (unless there was some major event the whole family should see, like a moon landing), and that rule was enforced with our own children.

Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal had an article this week about a sharp increase in the rate of injuries to toddlers and young children, in the last few years. There is speculation that perhaps too many parents are engaged with their phones, and taking their eyes off their little ones. Cited was a woman who claimed that she was only on the phone texting for 20 seconds when a toddler she was watching drowned in a hotel pool, but was resuscitated. But when surveillance tapes were checked, she had been oblivious to the child for over three minutes.

I don't drink anymore, but I kind of miss the old days where you could go into a fern bar, light a cigarette, order a scotch and water & actually have a conversation with friends over drinks. Now the trend is "sports bars" & there is a TV screen everywhere you look! People don't seem to talk anymore and even if they do, conversation is constantly interrupted by cell phones going off. I spend a little time on FB because I have relatives who live far enough away that is really the only way that we "see" each other. I've gotten to know some cousins that I never even met before FB. That said, I've heard from many people I went to high school with & I cannot believe the amount of triviality they post, some of it personal & potentially embarrassing. One woman wrote recently about her "gas problems" after eating certain foods. Don't people know that these posts live forever in cyberspace?

Personal electronics are an adult pacifier for the insecure.

What percent is actually important conversation ? Dribble ? What are you teaching your children ?