Hifi, I started to read your blog, but when I realized it wasn't about me, I lost interest. I'm pretty sure the author of that book was on TAL once, though. Maybe the quiz show edition, I'm not sure... I just remember that tag line.
We Quit Listening and Instead Began Waiting for Our Turn to Speak
Yeah, that's totally new with the internet. And people being insanely self-involved? That just started in the 60s.
Truthfully, I have very little patience for people who argue that our society is quickly losing / gaining some vital / horrifying attribute. Half the time, these theories are made up because someone wants to feel as if they're saying something important so that people will listen to them (Pot? Black). Then they come up with ridic "evidence" to support their theory - just because this guy has nothing better to do than walk around the mall with some chick who bored him to death with her rambling about cats and some other (the same?) chick dating a married man doesn't mean the rest of us can't carry on a conversation; sounds to me like he needs to get more interesting (and perhaps less whorey) friends.
Some (I'd argue many) people never knew how to carry on an interesting conversation in the first place, and they never would have.
But yeah, good read. Let's go drinkin.