Don't get me wrong, I love my little cousins. Seven year-old Ben is a thoughtful, well-spoken kid who reminds me a lot of myself (he's a massive bookworm) and Charlie is an energetic little cherub of four years-old. They're adorable. But there's an evil force corrupting their innocent minds. No, they haven't joined Hitler's Youth or been recruited as child prostitutes.
It's a nameless and faceless evil, made up of a number of things: TV, online games, Ninetendo DS... anything with a flashing screen and and irritating beeping sounds. They're obsessed. And it's not just my little cousins. Need I mention this kid...
Just the other day little Ben was complaining to me how some brat in his class has the new black Wii console. The look of anguish in my cousin's eyes unparalelled. Charlie decided to start playing his brother's Nintendo DS without asking him. Ben's fury at this was positively Exorcist-worthy. I reached into my pocket the other day, looking for my phone, to find that Charlie had commandeered it. He was hammering away at some mobile game that I didn't even realise my phone had.
My daily commute into and out of the city is a depressing affair. Everyone's plugged-in and plugged-up, iPods stuffed into their ears, iPhoned and Blackberried, Macbooks microwaving their gonads. Blocking out the world. I'm guilty of this too, of course. I'm a total train snob. But why the hell can't anyone spend a second of their lives outside this electronic bubble?
All this technology is supposed to be making us smarter, more advanced. But it's doing the opposite. We're becoming cavemen all over again, but instead of staring at fire, we're staring at glowing flickering screens.
Now get off my blog and open a book or something...
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