Heading into Floyd the other day on U.S. 221 South just past Ingram’s store when a northbound Ford Taurus came over the hill, straddling the center line.
I swerved my Harley to the right, almost to the shoulder, narrowly missing the car, which passed within inches of the motorcycle. As the car swept by I got a quick glance of the driver, trying to dial a number on his cell phone.
A couple of days earlier, a woman cruised through a red light in Floyd. She was fiddling with her GPS instead of keeping her eyes on the road.
Call these folks highway terrorists, rolling threats who occupy the highways every day and night.
It’s not just the highway. A woman yakking on her cell phone t-boned my grocery cart in Food Lion last week. She had a baby in the cart who, luckily, wasn’t hurt in the aisle three collision.
We are a nation of distracted citizenry, texting during lunch, behind the wheel or even while crossing the street in traffic. So much time is spent fiddling with the technological marvels that now dominate our lives that we are missing much of what is around us.
Are we, as a society, addicted to these things? Probably so.
Forgot my cell phone the other morning and spent an entire day not interrupted by the vibration of an incoming call or the short beep of an email. Managed to get a lot more done. I may leave the damn thing home more often.
In today’s wired society, we regularly communicate with people we never see, never talk to via phone or in person and — in too many cases — have never met. Parents follow their children on Facebook because that’s the only communication they have with their offspring. A new study says more and more people spend more time on Facebook than checking out news sites or looking for information. Blogging is in decline as “social media” takes over.
I could say more but gotta go. An email is coming in.
1 thought on “A society of distractions”
I can write a novel in anywhere from four months to a year, depending on the size of the book. When people ask me how I write so “fast”, I give an answer that many of them don’t much care for: I turn off the TV and the Internet, and I don’t answer the phone unless the call is coming from someone I know wouldn’t be calling unless it was important.
I’m usually only able to write about 4-5 hours a week, but just by turning off the distractions that becomes plenty of time.
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