On trains and buses, as well as in doctors' waiting rooms and plenty of other places, people tend to keep to themselves. The prevailing complaint is that our smartphones have closed us off to other people, or at least to the "real" people with whom we're in physical proximity. This claim assumes that before smartphones, in a manner very similar to claims made about earlier new technologies throughout history, things were different, and better. New technologies are a wonderful culprit for the continued deterioration of western culture.

Before the smartphone, when people read newspapers on the train they weren't interacting with the people sitting near them. But the newspaper isn't viewed as a technology, and thus it's not (or no longer) perceived as cutting us off from communicating. Contact with strangers is more the exception than the rule, which is why it often surprises us. Recently, as I was preparing to take a nap on the train home two young kids, about 19 or 20, sat down in front of me and started telling me about their (probably not-actual) upcoming wedding plans. I think they were a bit taken aback when I not only engaged them in conversation but suggested that instead of telling only me maybe we could find the conductor of the train and have him announce this to all the passengers. A pleasant conversation, lasting until I alighted, ensued, with one passenger changing her seat to take part, and another passenger from across the aisle joining in. For all of us this was clearly an out-of-the-ordinary event - other than in movies we simply don't expect strangers on a train to strike up a conversation.