I’m getting quite excited about my long haul trip back to London and where a few years ago I used to become quite agitated at the thought of being stationary for 28 hours, I now long to have that inevitable monotony.

I’ve made the journey a number of times and know the best sequence to place film watching, music listening, book reading, food eating and I’m pretty sure I’ll have my headphones on during all of it bar the sleeping bit. Experience tells me that despite being trapped inside a capsule for more than a day with hundreds of interesting people, I’ll be lucky to exchange a few words with any of them. I’ll be too engrossed in my ‘in flight entertainment system’ to worry myself with talking.

Getting hooked on technology and becoming more and more detached from people has become much more common place than I ever thought possible. Despite the fact that our global population numbers are exploding and there are more people to talk to than ever before, we seem to be slipping into an abyss that’s void of real people that have real lives. Instead of catching up for a coffee to find company, it’s easier to jump on FaceBook. We’ve replaced a game of Twister with our family for Donkey Kong Jungle Beat on Nintendo Wii and even the concoction of deliciousness that surrounds good old fashion courting has been superseded by ‘findsomeone.com’. It is now possible to fill the hole caused by loneliness and sadness with iPods and Blackberries and share our successes and opinions across SMS and Twitter. In fact if our jobs were of a particular type, we wouldn’t have to talk to anybody, ever again. I even know of a few personal trainers who have successfully replaced the ‘personal’ with weekly exercise programmes and support that are emailed through to clients they’ve never met.

Do we need real people anymore? Have they simply become surplus to requirements? We can ‘self serve’ in Pak ‘n’ Save, we can bank on line, even txt through a coffee order. Have we over complicated life with all these ever increasing people and unnecessary interactions? 

The pen used to be mightier than the sword with superiority coming from articulate and eloquent expressions of ideas. Without a doubt, cyberspace is now kicking Biro’s butt and in what will soon be the twenty second century, is that such a bad thing?