Smartphones effecting our society?

I watched a video today which really made me think about this. Like really, how are we as a society going to improve if we continue to think that life is about texting and social networking every moment of our lives? I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this. I'm a stay at  home mom, my only source of communication is with children or Facebook but isn't that sad?! I've literally gotten to the point in my life in which I don't call anyone. I text or if you don't have a cell phone...well I guess we won't talk. That's pathetic. Like I should really be a better person and call people and if not write a letter. Like Louis C.K. says in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c, we've lost our empathy and our ability to be alone by having smart phones. I agree. There's many times I wish I didn't have one, I'd get a lot more done without it. I'd blog more, I'd spend more time with my kids, my house would be cleaner, etc. I know this for a fact because I went without internet for days last month and my house was spotless! And when my phone is dead I play with my kids, have a conversation with my husband, get some of my work done. I'm so guilty of needing some sort of social interaction it's ridiculous, but I don't call anyone? Somethings wrong with this. And if I, as a 29 year old who grew up without a computer (until I was 12), bought a cell phone after high school, and spent my summers chatting on the cordless phone to my best friends on my front porch, find the need to be on FB all day, what are my kids going to do when they're introduced to it all? Granted I think a cell phone for calling home is necessary, there's many many times I had to walk home because my mom or someone didn't pick me up, or times I was gonna be late and couldn't call, and I ended up in trouble for it. But my kids wont have a smart phone, or Facebook for that matter, until they are older.

We need to teach our kids how to sympathize and have feeling for other human beings or we won't survive as a society.

Not only for the fact that I think they need better sources of socialization, but because I see all these teen suicides in which kids are killing themselves over whats being said on the internet. If you move your kid to a different school to avoid the bullying, that should be the end of it, but when you give your kids access to the internet in which they can easily be found, they have no chance. The bullying continues. Not to say I don't have sympathy for these parents, because lord knows if one of my children took their own life I would be more than devastated, but a lot of these suicides could possibly be avoided if the teens didn't have access to everything they have access to. Again, as Louis mentions, when you say "you're ugly" to someone's face, you see their reaction, you see that it hurts, and you rethink what you did, hopefully never doing it again. But if you go to someone's profile photo and say "you're so ugly", you get nothing from it but a response, whether it's a defensive or sad response, you won't feel it. You won't even begin to understand how that person felt when you said it, all you know is you said it and it made you feel good for the moment so there's nothing stopping you from doing it again. It concerns me that our children's futures are going to be surrounding with hate because of this.
On another note, with all these social networking sites, what's the point in high school reunions anymore? I went to mine with the thought that "I know everything about anyone I care about because they're on my facebook". I went to see how people I didn't like were fairing in life. In the end, I didn't even care. A lot of people were still the same and some people were still alone but they still think they're better than me, whatever. But the point is, there was no element of surprise, no "hey, so what do you do now? are you married, do you have kids?" Everyone who cares already knows the answers to these questions. However my husband who graduated 3 years prior, his reunion was a little "pre-socialized" because Facebook had pretty much just made an appearance, and he really didn't get on it (he still doesn't). People were actually interested in your life and how it was going. If that's how different it was in a 3 year time span, what's it gonna be like when my kid's have their first reunion's? Its scary to even think that some day they'll be that old, but even scarier to know that there won't be any point in going other than to have a few drinks.
There's days where I wish I could just exclude all this crap from my life, but without the internet my businesses would go nowhere, I have a hard enough time competing for people who can spend the whole day on the computer, no way I'd accomplish anything without it. However, I do know that I'm not setting my kid's up to be bullies, or be bullied. I'm not letting them go without learning how it feels to hurt someone, what its like to call someone instead of texting. How to spend an evening devoted to spending time with the family and not chatting with friends on the internet. I'm officially going to start taking two days off a week. I need to in order to set a good example for my kids.

Who wants to join me in this?!

I'll make my husband hide my phone and give it back to me in the morning because I have no self control at all. And if there's something I think of that I need to do, I'm just gonna write a note and do it the next day. We've gotta start somewhere right?