iPod Isolation and Cell phone Socialization. Is Technology killing Face-to-face Interactions and Social Skills?

iPod Isolation: A situation where people are in the same vicinity as others, yet are disconnected from human interaction because of their iPod, mp3, cd or tape player.

Ex. I was riding the bus to school one morning and it was packed full of people my age, many of whom I recognized, heading to school like me. I was looking around, and realized that no one on the bus was talking to anyone else. It was packed full of people listening to their iPods or mp3 players ignoring the actual people around them.

Cell phone Socialization: A situation where individuals in a group choose to interact with their cell phones rather than the other individuals in the group.

Ex. People invite each other out to dinner, yet some choose to play games on their cell phone or text other people, while waiting for their food instead of socializing.

While technology is bringing people around the world closer together, is it creating gaps between close social interactions? Also, what kinds of social skills is technology teaching the next generation? I grew up in a household where the telephone was not answered while the family was at dinner. And I wonder some times what kind of society we are living in when my boyfriend and I have to plan nights where we turn off our cell phones and just spend the night truly together. But now that cell phones have invaded into the pockets of everyone, it has made a huge shift into appropriateness of cell phones at restaurants, cars, dinner tables, in line at the grocery store or video store, dates, evenings with your significant other and other intimate social situations. When you go out for coffee for a friend, the intention is, and should always be, to socialize with that person and only that person. Or how many of you have been out shopping, or on the bus and thought "Wow, I can't believe that person is having that personal of a conversation here." as the person continues to gab about her sex life in line at the grocery store. I feel like these days some people don’t realize how rude it is to answer your cell phone, and then talk for a long time to another person, while they are at coffee with me. And now with the development of the Blackberry or the iPhone where there are millions of applications, including facebook and email available at the touch of a button, where is our socialization moving? Even so with texting, texting short hand (lol, lmfao, ttyl, etc), IMs and other social networking sites, has politeness, and the P’s and Q’s and standard social skills gone out the window?