Why is it that the more connected we get, the more disconnected I feel? Every advance in communication technology is a step back from the closeness of human interaction. With e-mail and instant messaging over the Internet, we can now communicate without seeing or talking to one another. With voice mail, you can conduct entire conversations without ever reaching anyone. If my mom has a question, I just leave the answer on her machine. As almost every imaginable contact between human beings becomes automatic by machine, the alienation quotient goes up. You can't even call a person to get the phone number of another person anywhere. Directory assistance is almost always fully automatic by machine. Pumping gas at the station? Why say good-morning to the worker when you can swipe ( ) your credit card at the pump and save yourself the bother of human contact? Placing money at the bank? Why talk to a clerk who might live in the neighborhood when you can just put your credit card into the ATM? Pretty soon you won't have the hard task of making eye contact at the grocery store. Some grocery chains are using a self-scanner so you can check yourself out, avoiding those annoying clerks who look at you and ask how you are doing. The writer's attitude towards advances in communication technology may be described as critical.