Technology Overload

Ever notice these days everybody's got their face in front of some sort of screen? I should talk, because I have my face in front of a screen right now. We have televisions, computers, monitors, etc. We see more screens than people in a given day anymore.

Today when I walked into the local Lucky's grocery store to pick up a couple of items, they had several large television monitors hanging at various locations throughout the store, and each was set to a loud volume. Episodes from the food network appeared on one of the monitors, another monitor was showing the store's weekly specials. The background MUZAK was competing with the monitors, and everything else was interrupted by the loud beeping of the scanners at the cash registers. To top it all off, the annoying computerized voice coming from the self-checkout telling people, "Unrecognized item in bagging area, please ask for assistance" pushed me over the edge.

I was so stressed out by the time I left by the noise from all the techno-crap I sat in my car for a good five minutes in complete SILENCE in order to regroup myself. No wonder I hate shopping at Lucky and I avoid it like the plague.