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Book Talk- Whatever Happened to Hanging Out? by Sheila Liming
I recently heard a review of this book and an interview with the author on NPR……and I had to order it IMMEDIATELY!!!
The conversation on NPR expressed exactly what I have been trying to say for the last couple of years…..how social media and technology — along with stupid COVID- have altered our social behavior for the worse. I agree 100%.
The author described, in the interview, the identical thoughts that I had when I rode the T for the first time in a number of years, only she was describing people walking down the average street.
Most people are wearing headphones. Everyone is looking down at their phones. Nobody is making eye contact or having random conversations with strangers. Oh how I adore random conversations with strangers!!! I will not stop having them….. and you cannot make me! A few weeks ago, I was the only one on a fully packed train car on the red line who was not holding a phone in her hand. I wanted to have a random conversation with a stranger and there was not one to be had.
Sheila Liming described asking her family to come together to watch a movie. She said she was the only…