by Vincent LeVine

Created on: January 28, 2009   Last Updated: March 05, 2012

You go to your bank to make a deposit. The newly renovated drive-through is 30 feet from the glass window the tellers are seated behind. The small speaker comes to life- "Hi". You respond, wondering if you're being heard. You stick the deposit in a plastic tube, position it inside a tube launcher, and press SEND. The electronic door closes slowly and there's a blast of air that carries your transaction to the teller. You wait. When the deposit slip arrives back, you assume the muffled sound you hear is a "thank you"

You walk into Dunkin' Donuts and stand patiently at the register. An employee wearing the familiar brown and orange walks by and says "Can I help you?" You respond with " I'll have a large regular with three sugars and a " but before you can finish you notice the employee is not talking to you, but talking into a headset and helping someone in the drive-through. You feel stupid, embarrassed, and powerless

You're in a line at the movies and see someone you know. They say "Hi, what's up?" You begin to respond, but they spin around, continuing their conversation into their cell phone. It's awkward and humiliating

You pick up your son or daughter from school, excited to hear about their day. As they approach the car you see their right arm is slightly bent and tilted down at their side, hand at their hip, fingers busy, they almost bump into the car door. They smile, but not at you. They're text messaging a friend who might only be 25 feet away

Welcome to the "New World"! It's an impersonal place not dependent on actual human interaction for its survival or its kicks

For those of us old enough to remember, there was the radio character (1934), comic strip (1947), and cartoon character (1960), a plainclothes police detective named Dick Tracy. The cartoon animation I remember was bland, straight line stuff, but the unusual technology was amusing. Tracy wore a yellow fedora hat and matching trench coat, had thick eyebrows, sharp facial features, and narrow blacked-out eyes.

Created by cartoonist Chester Gould and appearing as a comic strip in The Detroit Mirror in 1931, Dick Tracy was the first to introduce raw violence to comic strips, reflecting the violence of Chicago during the 1930's. The villains were based on real-life gangsters.

It was in 1946 that inventor Al Gross aided Gould, who retired in 1977, with the introduction of the two-way wrist radio Tracy would use to communicate. A character named "Diet Smith", an eccentric industrialist, developed

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