If you live in a large urban area with good public transportation, you’ve probably experienced the same thing I did this morning. I walked over to the subway—I live in Manhattan—and boarded a train going downtown. The car held a good number of passengers: children, teens, and a variety of ages older. Almost all of them were gazing at cell phones, children included, or, with headphones on, bobbing to music only they could hear. One young woman was reading a book.
There is nothing unusual in this unless you were born prior to the digital revolution and can recall when newspapers and magazines replaced cell phones and small portable radios replaced headphones; but then the radio was useless underground. And, of course, there was the quiet rustle of paper as passengers folded, tightly or loosely, the printed matter they were holding, along with its inky odor, the odd passenger reading...