A Word to the Wise: Ditch the computer and see the world around you

Here comes a rant. You can chalk it up to being a member of an older generation or you can attribute it to jealousy. It doesn't matter to me. I am getting tired of seeing a certain person all of the time. What they are doing doesn't seem right to me.Perhaps you have seen this person around town as well. They are walking around, staring at the device in their hand. They walk into people, walk into furniture and refuse to look up until it is too late. What is going on with these people?For generations, for centuries, we made it through life without being electronically attached constantly by the umbilical cord of the Internet. Suddenly, it seems, folks can't get along without their regular, and I do mean regular, dose of often vapid stimulation. It's as bad as a drug.It probably wouldn't bother me so much if it was a connection to important things. I can see someone needing directions, needing a recipe or needing to talk to their mom. But so much of the online interplay is mindless chatter and trivia. It is fun but it is not so incessantly necessary.Having said this, I could still live and let live and leave it alone. But so many people end up being social hazards as they walk and drive with the little screen brainwashing them. There has got to be a better way of doing this and there is probably someone inventing it right now.In the meantime there is little else that I can do besides drive and walk defensively, avoiding those who will run into me because they are not paying attention to the primary task at hand. The old version of the put-down was, "He can't talk and chew gum at the same time." The new version is, "You can't walk (or drive) and text at the same time." You can't.As summer officially arrives in a week or so and the season of vacations arrives, think about this — wouldn't it be great if you took some time off from electronics? I am afraid the newer generation cannot conduct normal human interactions because they have been weaned on the keyboard. "I can't look you in the eye and conduct a normal conversation, bt I cn txt u, lol."You either get it or you don't. These words are for those who get it.Tom Rupp is a Bible teacher at Capital Bible College. He can be reached at truppfolsom@yahoo.com.