All The Lonely People

I don't mean this to be a depressing post but I was at an IT Conference in Philly today and while traveling to and from I was thinking but how lonely our society has become. While sitting on the train there was absolute silence with the majority of people (and I'm guilty of this to) looking at their phones. Along the way I noticed the suicide prevention posters that Septa posted at every station and thought to myself no wonder suicide is such a problem when no one says hello to anyone any more and there is very little human contact. I felt really alone at the conference as well (granted IT people are not known for being extroverts) but I thought how strange for all these people to come together and not talk to anyone. I managed to have a conversation with two people, one was a student from Nigeria who is here in the states for training and the other person was a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin. On the way home there was silence on the train again as I thought about how we barely stop to notice people any more. All of this to say that I need to do a better job of smiling at people and at least saying hello. You never know what that little bit of human contact can do for a person, especially one who may be hurting.