Yowl Part One A

I’ve seen the minds of my generation bested by their handheld mobile devices, texting for a dopamine rush, tuning out the reality around them. I’ve watched them, withdrawn from present company, looking for bars of microwave coverage, friending strangers, downloading angry birds, internet junkies, living in the ether, looking for that server connection to fame gauged by the number of hits they receive, who sit in restaurants with downturned faces aglow, oblivious to their dinner companions, to check who has Twittered® them in the last few minutes, who drive distractedly, causing fatalities in order to update their Twaddle® followers with TMI about their state of mind on the road, who walk into traffic, updating their relationship status or performing Binglehoo® searches for celebrity gossip or obituaries, who envision themselves as divas, broadcasting narcissistic images of every party or event they’ve attended in the camera phone eye, imagining others care, who live without discretion in the digital age, unknowingly or uncaringly giving up control over their destinies to follow the latest manufactured meme, who look with disdain on anyone behind the curve of the latest cell phone product designed to track them through time, space and potentially subversive ideas, who are GPSed at all times allowing local merchants to alert them to sales or law enforcement to track their movements, who are trained to demand ever higher speed connection because they’re afraid to be, “so seven seconds ago,” who fire up the Wiki at both ends eliminating the need for scholarly research or retention of thought, who self-publish their diaries and essays as open blogs pretending that makes them journalistic writers, who trust all their personal information to cloud networks they don’t begin to understand,