The Free Thinker

It's funny to think about how quickly times have changed. Not too long ago, if you saw someone walking down the street alone while talking you'd cross the street ASAP. Then it became okay if you were holding a phone to your ear. And now, with those clever little bluetooth headsets, we can barely tell who's whack at all anymore.

But that's not all that's changed. Electronic communications have changed the way modern relationships work, and not always for the better.

Once upon a time when you agreed to meet someone somewhere, you'd damn well better be there around the right time or they'd take off and you could spend a fair bit of time trying to track them down. But now we've got a license to be lazy and rude. We don't need to be on time. We can call ten minutes before and warn them that we're going to be late.

Hell, half the time we're not even clear on where we're supposed to meet anymore. How many times have you told someone to meet you at the Eaton Centre without mentioning which of the hundreds stores you should be at?

Not only that, cell phones have given us more excuses. "My phone died" is the 21st century's answer to "The cheque's in the mail." You can just fake a couple of desperate hellos and hang up on people whenever you want. The technology's lack of reliability has rubbed off on us.

Of course we all should've seen this coming. Early 90s heartthrob Zack Morris was on the bleeding edge of cellular technology, and I can't imagine a more inconsiderate or lazier prick than him.