I must admit Im guitly on all charges except the cellphone. I mostly text with it. My cd player, however, is with me constantly when im walking. Although most of the time im walking to a social function. I just find more often than not that the "glance from a stranger" makes me want to cross the street so I dont make eye contact on the street and the "causual remark from a passerby" usually involves wanting a few bucks for something "to eat" or wanting to bum a smoke. I love New York (really)

Daniel, you'll get no argument from me that it can get wearying dealing with street people, especially when you have no idea how great their need really is is; or if you entertain doubts about handouts; or if you simply (and legitimately) dislike having your space invaded peremptorily.

But an interesting thing happened to me in the neighborhood shopping district recently in West Seattle. A street drunk looking only somewhat tanked but very disoriented was coming toward me, and instead of brushing by as usual, I simply let myself be open to him. He asked not for money, but, "Where Am I," and it wasn't as ridiculous a question as it might sound, because the city is cut up by water and bridges and even sober folk new to town can end up way off track on the bus, or driving.

I steered him back to the bus stop with instructions on how to get back to where he wanted to go. And found myself thinking that if I didn't have to go pick up my kids at school, I would have actually bought the guy a cup of coffee and talked to him for a while.

Call it a mid-life crisis, but after doing a magazine piece on how people approach teaching spirituality to their children, and thinking about the whole idea of other-directedness, I realized that (among other things) it's important to be open to strangers in need, while still deploying judgement and skepticism.

Opportunities to do a small good deed (and this was small, certainly) often come at random, in public places. Plugged into an iPod or cell phone, I never would have given the guy a glance.

Matt, I sympathize with your desire for more cohesive, in-touch communities, but think your take on the negative effects of modern consumer technology are overly dour.

I don't have any figures or studies to back this up, but I would argue that technology may be bringing people closer together than walling them off from each other.

If those people in the coffee shops didn't have wireless laptops, they wouldn't necessarily be doing volunteer work at the local soup kitchen, they'd be stuck in a cubicle somewhere, even more walled off than they are now.

And they probably aren't IM'ing "other strangers", but a distant work colleague or friend whom they may otherwise not be in touch with.

Listening to an iPod on a bus isn't that far from reading a book. At least if you're listening to music, your eyes can still engage the environment and take stock of interesting things and people. Personally, I'd be more reluctant to engage someone obviously engrossed in a novel than to smile at someone with earplugs.

I'd also look to see what the effects are close to home. Sure people might zone out on the bus or while popping out at work for coffee, but are they ignoring neighbors and family in order to do so? In the case of teens, okay, maybe. I sure spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone and in front of the TV as a youth, much to my parents' chagrin. But you know what? I grew out of that.

People, I think, naturally gravitate towards face-to-face interactions as they get older. Technology gets subsumed into the background rather than taking the spotlight at the forefront. We all enjoy a cup of coffee with mom or a beer with the buddies. As with a lot of other things, it's about moderation.

Oh, and I know what you mean about Apple. Santa brought my wife a 12" iBook for Christmas, and we have been totally digging it. I'm a PC guy at heart, but have to say I am really impressed by that little machine, and the software Apple throws on it. As a music fan, have you tinkered with GarageBand yet? Awesome piece of software, that!

I like the U-Village.

It's clean and nice. It has a Ben and Jerry's. It has Barnes & Noble. My wife likes some of the kitchen stores. There are no bums either. The children who play by the water area like our dogs.

I like it. I'm all for consumerism.

Scott, I hear you. Moderation is the key word, I guess.

Like you, I'm excited about using the home recording studio software loaded onto my new Apple computer. Even maybe the iTunes package as well. But I'll be using that to burn special mix CDs for myself and my friends. I suppose I really ought to put the mixes on those little content-bearing modules that play on iPods, right? But then I'd have to buy an iPod first, and use it...in public!

There's an Isaac Asimov novel, "The Naked Sun" (the sequel to "I, A Robot"), that is set on a planet where humans have no (or extremely limited) personal interaction. Communication is generally accomplished by holograms and the use of personal robots. I've often wondered if we were headed in that direction.

I was in a coffee shop in Wallingford the other night with some friends. We were sitting around chatting and got a number of distressed looks from other patrons who seemed disturbed that we were making noise, while they were reading or staring at their puter screens. Maybe it is time to unhook from the Matrix, at least a little bit.

What's wrong with the Matrix?

I like being plugged into the Matrix. Makes me fat, happy and dumb!

If I wanted to stay thin, depressed and edgy, I wouldn't have immigrated.

Wow Matt, you are attracting confessions from this spiritual piece you've written, do I sense a calling? Seriously though, I have always admired the Washington Athletic Club's policy of no-reservation, round lunch tables with a big lazy susan in the middle to hold condiments. They are "conversation tables" where anyone can go and have a great social time of it. Cel phone? Take that call in the lobby. Maybe it is an outpost, a bastion, but something tells me even Brother Na would unplug from his neural net long enought to like it - maybe next week...