Remember the old days when a bunch of friends would agree to meet at any place and all of us would find each other after arriving at that place. Wonder if that would be possible today?
I think you conveniently forget the days where people were 30 mins late and you had to wait for them in the cold not knowing where they were and when they would arrive.
Cultural differences apply. I remember realising when socialising with Italian students, that arranging a time to meet was a precursor to 60-90 minutes of chat about what we might do, who was going to turn up etc, etc.
I warned a friend who I took on a subsequent visit, that meeting at 7.30pm probably meant eating at 10pm. And in fact I was 15 mins optimistic! This included a visit to someone's house, being invited in for a quick aperitivo, driving 40 mins to restaurant etc...
Remember Blaise Pascal's divertissement (meaning: diversion, systematic distraction, etc)? He was alive in the 1600s, and he was making the same exact case we are making today! So I wouldn't be too quick to imply the ol' days were the better days.
I argue the better days are when we become piercingly aware that we have been alienated from our true selves and consequently err in the opposite direction of worldliness and more in the direction of peace, silence, and solitude as a means to live the good life. As naive as all the above may sound.
He wasn't talking about having fun he was talking about self distraction to avoid thinking about life
He thought that distractions, like working, served the purpose of not thinking about the misery of life, such as the ultimate fear of death.
Pascal never said that ol' times were better, he said that women and men, left alone with their thought cannot handle it.
According to Pascal, People only live in the future, imagining a life that does not exist yet, while they avoid to think about their past and present actions as causes of their actual condition.
It's more or less what happens today with the disposable nature of social networks content.
He wasn't making the same exact case, Pascal is one of the best philosophers in history.
We had our own tools that previous generations didn't have. We would have had difficulty making arrangements without our tools, but we would have found a way. Kids today are no different. They have their tools and they use them. I'm totally ok with that.
It sounds like you think technology has fully eroded everyone's ability to plan. I doubt that's the case. We just use different tools now, and expend less time/energy on logistics.
Am I to assume that you haven't left your house since "the old days"? Why in the world would that be impossible.
Even more obviously: how exactly do you think people find each other when they arrive at a location? Are you assuming they don't use their eyes to look around?
