People used to holler that TV was making the kids stupid and there was a new study every week “proving” it.
The people doing these studies simply have no understanding of media science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media:_The_Extensions_of_Man is a good beginning.
It's the shift from the industrial age to the electronic age people.
Pretty soon these kids with no "real world" skills will be pitying you like you pity the old people who can barely browse a web page and get confused by e-mail. Just like them you will be untrainable in the new media space.
These phones are a prosthetic for the nervous system. They extend it as all electronic media does.
The reason the kids seem like they’re not even in the room is because they aren’t. They’re hanging out with their friends. You’re old and being around you harshes their buzz.
The kids’ sensory balance adjusts to this environment numbing certain faculties while sensitizing others that are numbed in you. The reason they have withdrawal symptoms is because you are chopping off a piece of their sensory apparatus. If I jam a pencil in your ear before having a conversation with you I guarantee it won’t be a pleasant conversation and you won’t exactly shine.
These phones will disappear soon. There will be no faces buried in screens just visual overlays. There will be no typing just thinking. These kids’ thoughts will take place across the planet and their minds will be linked intimately with their friends in ways you will never experience.
Your tiny little minds will still be trapped inside the prison of your head.
Your sense of superiority over these kids is rooted firmly in your obsolescence.
One day soon you will have to ask a question of one of these kids to figure out what the hell is going on and they will roll their eyes, sigh deeply and talk down to you like a granny they are helping to cross the street.