An Irony of Today's e-linked Culture: Retaining Our Humanity in a Tech Savvy Age

Here is a comment that a Facebook friend (Jeff Mauriello) posted on Facebook today:

So I'm at this coffee shop and I continue to witness a rather disturbing trend in our tech savvy society -- people seem to care more about updating their lives on their cool phones rather than conversing with the people they are physically next to. The more connected we are, the more isolated we become.

Sadly, this is so true. "The more connected we are, the more isolated we become." A very good way of putting it.

We should all stop and ponder this. In our craze to have every e-gadget to be "connected" with other people, are we becoming less and less able to relate as human beings in the most basic and most important way--in a personal, face-to-face interaction with someone who is physically right in front of us?

It is fine to use technology in ways that truly enhance and add positively to our lives. But we should never forget that if we are not careful technology can actually drive us away from those persons who are beside us in the present moment. It doesn't have to do this, but we must be conscious of this danger and strive (and pray) to use all forms of technology in a virtuous way--in a way that does not diminish our ability to remain fully human in the simplest and most fundamental of ways of interacting with other human beings.

A couple questions to help in our quest for a healthy, virtuous use of technology: Is a certain piece of technology controlling me, or am I in full control of it? Does my use of this thing make me more, or less human overall in the way I relate to other people?