It was a busy Saturday night at the family resteraunt where I wait tables. Tourists were gorging on the greasy, fat-loaded meals that spark guilt in me for even suggesting them. The night would have been forgotten if not for one thing. Seated at a booth were a young mother and father with their adorable little boy, no older than three. I had to do a double take to absorb what I saw: in front of the child was a portable DVD player, the kind made by Samsung or Polariod. He was watching a movie.

But he wasn't just watching it. He was motionless and hypnotized. His mouth was open, his pupils [were] dilated and a blank glassy-eyed stare had seized his face. He was gone, as if the damned thing has commandered his soul. Word spread among the employees, and the boy became an instant sideshow. I had to walk away. After a moment, I looked back at him, leaned against the wall, and let out a giant sigh of vanquish.

-- Peter DeGiglio
(Adbusters - May/June 2004)

Aside from this having rather blatant ties to my last post, I think it's quite overwhelming in terms of a basic measure of how disaffected and isolated people - or individual families - are becoming. We seem to rely on gluttonous amounts of food and material goods to comfort and entertain, even as a family unit. Granted, I'm probably one of the biggest "comfort eaters" most of you know, but in this context, it still is a bit sickening. I have no personal or social context through which I can find this normal, acceptable, or even commonplace. Or maybe it's just because I come from an "era" of Speak and Spell and where watching TV at the table was something reserved for "special treats" such as the Challenger disaster and the series finales of "Full House" and "Roseanne"...