Rip Van Rouda Wakes Up

I just woke up from a really long, really bad dream. In it, people the world over had become imprisoned, tethered to desks and tables in offices and coffee shops and airports and hotel rooms, hunched over odd little machines, typing their days away. Honest dialogue and communication between most people had all but disappeared. No touching. No nothing. Everyone instead met up in a virtual world, on glowing screens inches from their faces, typing out their thoughts and feelings, and in many cases, if not most, hiding behind false fronts. "Liking" others had become a sort of competition, and "friendship" had all but ceased to have any meaning.

I am guessing that the dream was sparked by a recent post by a friend of mine exclaiming excitedly that she had just reached 4,300 "likes" on her Facebook page. I found this news both obscene and scary. And in some way it made me not like her in real life anymore. I don't want to be one in 4,300 anythings.