Hear and Now

This is the Age of Introversion. Enmeshed with that is the penumbra in which we seek technological means to dissuade others from interacting with us. This is cutting edge. This is what fads obsessions lead us to purchase...it is what the American public at large moves toward as a society, a quieting of Americans as an antisocial-social movement.
The top selling products in America today are almost solely personal electronics. In the great arena of competitive commercial outfits, the names that jump out as contending gladiators are that of Apple, Sony, and all things Blue Tooth. Now, one ,may be apt to utter defiantly that among these electronics producers, the goal of many of the leading products sought after are communication devices; cell phones, internet able "smart phones" and computers. Rightly so. These are all connecting people with a rapidly expanding speed and distance conquering aptitude. Yet what matters is the manner and depth to the communication taking place, or the lack of it.
Around cities across the nation, I-Tuned out youths gambol to and fro. Insulated by their ear buds, they may walk as if ghosts, undeterred by the sites and sounds beyond their own mumbling or humming. No polite words spoken to passersby, taking in the few sounds that nature can interject in our ever-urban realities, these silent masses robotically negotiate their travels to the soundtrack of their hermetic selfs.
Differing from the selectively deaf meandering souls, if only slightly, are the glossolalia plagued Blue-Toothers. Seemingly speaking in tongue, the indifference displayed to those surrounding the babbling schizophrenics is amplified ignobly toward those who attempt to answer awkwardly the speaker-of-tongues or even less sensibly, attempt to entreat the orator to say, place an order, direct the taxi toward a destination or otherwise interact with a person presently in the same vicinity as the blue-tooth baron.
Recently found in in the pages of a suburban high school newspaper was a full-page advertisement for a device so introvert-ably awesome that I presume the internet will be slowed to a trickle at the hurried clamor of click-clack texting, typing and hyping. The inspired cure-all nostrum that will prove to ward off any non-cellular communicant:
"Myvu’s personal media viewer is everything you need for a hands free private viewing experience, at home or on-the-go."
The gimmick is easy: Take one I-pod or other leading brand isolation machine, add one pair dark sunglasses, and enjoy. Text away, watch a video, a movie, your choice. The benefits are incalculable. At once watching a downloaded video, ignoring the people around you and being blinded of the bank teller, fellow diners and oncoming buses; you now appear to be deaf, dumb and blind.
The act is complete. In the pursuit of the latest communications gadgets you have sufficiently drowned out the hear and now. Through popular technology and fad movement , Americans are slowly and selectively opting out of the community. Finding a backward avenue to social pariah has become an achievement that Steve Jobs et al have found to be a financially rewarding antisocial-social movement.