It's sentences like this that I would imagine to be under a dictionary definition of "nostalgia." I read this, immediately look off into the distance in an oh-so-subtle way, and then wonder quickly how this type of thing could be changed... and if it would be changed.

Think of the last time the bus or the subway car stopped more suddenly than anyone expected. Most everyone will look up, look around, and make brief eye contact with another person to make sure that someone else felt it too. There's that initial panic that sets over a number of people, then, seeing how others have this same, shared experience, everyone is immediately partially comforted. Why wouldn't we be? Someone else is here, they know what's going on, we'll get through this together.

The instant connectivity means that this period of worry before we make the most fleeting of eye contact is even shorter - we're getting rid of that terrifying low in order to have a constant sense of stability. When we do this, we don't feel that euphoric positive delta of connection and of community. The internet, the tubes, the twitters, the facebooks, the pictures, everything is just a numbing agent so we don't have to fret for that initial period of time.

We've advanced as a society to avoid the great pains of life as much as possible - fighting to remove hunger, distance ourselves from war, medicine to cure the sick. Why do we think it unreasonable or unexpected for society to also inadvertently make progress towards avoiding the emotional pains of life?