Whatever social skills I may or may not possess, there do exist people in whose company I would not be comfortable. I don't hang around with them.

/me gets off your lawn. ;-)

I don't mind it when my friends prank me (and I prank them back), but that's because we have an understanding and it's our way of showing affection. (BTW... CACTUS.)

See, if there was a world wide "prank me" database where you could choose people at random off of it and prank them, that would be awesome. Then it would be consensual for all involved.

And as for the room full of people txting, the people who choose to text and not interact can do so, and the people who choose to interact can do so as well. Not everyone appreciates being thrust into social situations they didn't ask to be in and then being forced to socialize. (I don't like it depending on the group I'm thrust into. My ex hated it in general.) Not everyone is as comfortable around strangers as you are or has the social skills you have. For someone with, say, Asperger's, that can be a living hell.

You make some valid points about the social issue. In the situation of the roomful of people ignoring each other in favor of the electronic messages, however, I still tend to think that the social situation in front of them takes precedence, and pretending it does not is just rude.

Part of me still misses the days when phones had cords, and once you were out of range of one you had no choice but to pay attention to what was going on around you. (Incidentally, get off my lawn!) My online friendships are as important and real to me as my offline ones, and I love communicating online to folks near and far, but I would not snub a roomful of people IRL to do so. A public social situation is not my private space, and the Internets can wait until I get back to my computer.

Most people would find it socially unacceptable for a roomful of physical people to pile into their office or bedroom while they are in an online chat, waving their hands in front of the screen and vying for attention. I find the reverse equally upsetting.

The reason I don't like prank calls is because of how it fucks with the feelings of the target. I know what it's like to be pranked, and I know how crappy it feels, and I just don't want people doing it to other people. Especially innocent people who did nothing to you. (Your enemies? Go for it, if you must.)

But scammers aren't innocent people. At all.

And I'm so tired of "the interwebs are killing social interaction". It comes from a premise that what you do online isn't "real". Which is bullshit. The internet is just a form of communication, like phone calls or letters. (And sometimes, with the joy of webcams and skype, it lets us have face to face interaction with those that live far away. For free at that.) Face to face interaction is important, and honestly, I don't see it going out of style. (If you can get hackers to crawl out of their shells and go to a con, it's doing just fine.) But the whole ZOMG NOONE'S INTERACTING OFFLINE ANYMORE is like Chicken Little complaining about the sky falling.

And as for this "NO ONE was talking. Every person in the place was sitting there on their cell phones, texting, surfing", the last time I checked, that WAS talking. It's just talking with other people than the ones present. We've chosen, instead of interacting with the people present with us (who may or may not be good for conversation anyway), interacting with people of our choosing. Our friends and stuff. People still get together for the express purpose of making new friends. And people DO make new friends online. This just keeps us from having to have awkward conversations with our coworkers or other random idiots.

Also, the last time I checked "concentrate on some shitty piece of plastic and artifical synapses?" is bullshit as well. The computer doesn't talk back to you. Every bit of content you EVER take in was created by a HUMAN behind a desk somewhere. Computers, cell phones, etc. don't talk on their own. They require people to work. And that's another fallacy I'm sick of. When you do things on a computer, you are NOT TALKING TO A COMPUTER. You are talking to the PERSON on the other end. Whether it's writing in someone's blog (Hi Rob!) or playing WoW. There's always a REAL HONEST TO GOD LIVE PERSON on the other side. (Or at least there was to create the content.)

Sorry, but this is just one of my big pet peeves.

Oh, and as for "We're all getting worse, less friendly and more self absorbed." What? Do you think that people of days past were always interacting with people? Do you think they NEVER brought a book or something to occupy their time? The great thinking of the WORLD wouldn't have happened w/o that "self-absorbed" thinker shutting out the world and working out Archimede's Screw or the Pythagorean Theorem or "To be or not to be" or any other number of the world's great thoughts. What would the OP say to Descartes and "I think, therefore I am"?

...and I wonder what sort of punk'dage got Cableflame to LOL. A very deserving one no doubt.