The Land Of The Quiet People

So I'm down visiting my parent agency as I do once or more a month, staying at my Hyatt Place that I love, squirreling away my rewards points like a bored chipmunk. As I arrive, I walk through the main lobby and stumble upon a sea of "the quiet people." This wouldn't have been so strange but I looked up and there were kids texting on phones, parents talking in hushed tones, people on laptops and a gaggle of college kids on ipods. None of which were making a peep, it was surreal.

Now, I'm not going to prognosticate that the world is removing itself from vocal communication but it was apparent from just this little microcosm that I was surrounded by three different, seemingly unrelated demos, all of whom were consumed by their technologies to the point of saturation. I think I was most thrown by the table of teens that looked like they were at war with their phones. Flying through feverish patterns with blazingly fast blurry thumbs. Had it been thirty years ago it might have looked like a game of 'Battleship' but again that would still require speaking to one another. Even as I sit here in the lobby and write this I keep waiting for someone to say something other than the receptionist keying in wake-up calls. I think I'm going crazy. Oh well, I'm off to my room where I can be quiet.