Where have all the people gone?

I understand technology. I love technology. There are days however, when I truly believe in the deepest recesses of my heart that we would be better off with less; Less information, less doo-dads to busy our constant thoughts, less security and more honesty. I wish the world could exist as it did a few years ago, cept without the ignorance and hostility. I want to live in an environment where people still meet face to face. We can hear a persons voice and view their facial complexities. With so much information at our very fingertips all hours of the day, we've lost sight of what's important and what it takes to exist as a fully functioning peaceful society. I spend endless hours on computers, cell phones, ipods that sometimes I think I've lost sight of the fact that there are people in my life that I would like to touch base with instead of viewing there facebook page and piecing together what little clues they infer about themselves. Perhaps it's just the tools I am using specifically that drive me to distraction or it's the fact that on an average day, I hardly relate to any human beings at all. I can carry out the smallest most menial tasks by way of the internet that nearly send me spinning...if I were to truly stop typing for a second to think about it. I could order a pizza, pay for it and consume it through a virtual feeding tube(patent pending) and all of this would be carried out by cyberspace with little to no human contact. I miss the human touch. I miss a time when we were forced to leave our homes cuz that damn china hutch wasn't going to come to me dammit! I must admit we truly have it fucking made. With so much technology to free up our lives, we have a helluva lot of time to think. I now have time to ponder my place in this world and if I really matter. Some heavy topics have surfaced which render me often quite incapacitated. I don't mind being intelligent and tackling these thoughts but I have so much goddamn time on my hands, it's all I fricken do! Once upon a time, we had to work to survive...literally. We had to perform so many tasks just to create a tasty spread for our freshly baked bread that we had no time to complain, covort, or contemplate things beyond our capability of understanding. Things are advancing so rapidly, that soon we won't require the human touch on much. I'm not saying we should impede progress, all I want is to look at something still while I'm spinning round to prevent me from holding true to what's real and what is relevant. I want a human being to answer the phone when I call my bank. I want a human being to read from his national best seller surrounded by a group of fellow sponges instead of reading the bloody thing on the internet. Something has to be said for the human quality. Technology has progressed to such an extent that my life is incredibly simple. At the touch of a button I could talk to my sister half way across the country, or make an atom bomb. We could save the economy by using less technology and more people. Lets do away with the back hoe and the bob cat and bring back the fucking shovel. I appreciate how easy my life is, but is it really? People these days may live longer because of our technological advances/breakthroughs...but we have more stress, more heart disease and more worry than we ever have before....What should I do with my life? Where should I live to maximize the quality of existence? Who should I be with? Why am I here? If a tree falls in the forest...blah blah blah. If I had a set role and my life was about staying alive and living as best I could for a few years, wouldn't we all be much happier? Our childrens lives would have purpose and so on and so on. Right now our children walk into their schools to be greeted by metal detectors and armed men collecting nail files. Is it that society is too advanced for the creatures that dwell within it, is it that parents are not present, is technology forcing children to live beyond their ages? beyond their means? I want a life I can be proud of, but how can that exist if I can't find my place in this mess of wires and keyboards? Our options are endless and therein lies the heart of the issue. How are we a liberated and intelligent society when we couldn't function if our computer crashes and our cell phone dies? We are not so far from happiness...we just need a reminder once in a while of how life should be lived...not viewed vicariously on a screen, in the dark, at our moms house.