Accessories of the technological age - are they taking over our lives?

After a week in the far distant reaches of North East Scotland, one startling realisation is making me squirm with embarrassment. Unease and impatient self-contempt force me to admit my complete incapability to feel complete without the various accessories of modern technological life. Mobile phone, laptop, digital set-top box, the list goes on - I missed them all, and I must confess and describe to you the entire sad picture. Envisage if you will, the sight of your desperately unfit blogger struggling up the nearest hill a mere two days into the holiday - in the quest for phone reception and longed for internet access. Anorak-shrouded on a lonely clifftop edge in the pouring rain I obsessively checked my e-mails, don't forget facebook, and frantically bid on ebay.
Despite my earlier post in which I allege not to feel part of this technological age, I am ashamed of myself for having given in to this modern urge; an obsession to feel permanently connected with the outside world. Even now, the need to have University Challenge murmuring quietly in the background strikes me with concern. Is it me, or is it a feature of the young generation that seems to require persistent reassurance from various simulations of human contact? Worse still, does this eerie hands-off existence include us all in technological dependence? My grandma just got an ipod for Christ's sake.
We seem to be depriving ourselves of real human contact in favour of interaction with machines - are we deluding ourselves about our ability to be sociable? The whole world seems to go by without me noticing it. Every bus, train journey and walk I take I'm detached from reality, depending on my machines of distraction to entertain and amuse. Does silence scare us? If only our obsession for being constantly occupied could be implemented constructively in this mess of a planet.
Forgive me for sounding like an old woman, I don't mean to be closed-minded. Maybe it's a feature of evolution that we grow continually aloof, or maybe these are just our new toys, a luxury that we will indulge momentarily, soon to be forgotten. We become individuals in our detachment, yet in our separateness we are doing all the same. Entertaining ourselves used to rely on each other. Even in relation to our growing obesity crisis, technology has a guilty part to play - over Eastenders I sure wouldn't rather play tennis! Aside from the PC attempt of the Wii-fit, (a believable virtual reality indeed), discouraging the lazy normality is the last thing on our minds. Either way I'm as guilty as the next person - human nature desires convenience, and for the average individual, you can't deny we spoil ourselves.