They Said We'd Have Hovercrafts By Now...

So, I spent this "winter holiday" (oh my, how sickeningly politically correct) moving back in with my mother. How I came to be moved out at seventeen is a long story that I won't tell here; but either way, I live in a two bedroom apartment now, with no washing machines, no television connection (We have a tv and a dvd player, but only own about 20 movies, you can imagine how sick I am of watching Cinderella by now.), no internet, and my cell phone was stolen just before we got out of school (we have no home phone). I really didn't notice how dependent my generation is on technology until I found myself walking a mile to the nearest gas station to use the pay phone. All there is to do for entertainment at my house now is watch those aforementioned twenty movies, do sudoku puzzles until my head splits open, and read/study for school.
It was the French artist Joseph Roux that said "Solitude vivies; isolation kills." Sitting in my apartment during winter holiday with no where to go and no entertainment but a dozen or so "spicy" level sudokus staring me down made me wonder just what qualifies something as isolation and not solitude. Perhaps I was isolated because I wished for company or an activity that would put me outside of the half painted walls of my new apartment; or because doing sudoku in bad light gives me a headache...But then, why should I need constant stimulation (electronic or otherwise) from the outside world in order to be content with my situation? Has having had my friends at my fingertips through my phone, or endless streams of tv sitcoms blaring in my living room for the nearly the entirety of my young adulthood to date, deprived me of the ability to exist in peaceful "solitude"? It may have, because had I a computer with internet access at my home, I know I would spend the majority of my day emailing friends, chatting on facebook, and browsing wikipedia. The inability to do so has apparently caused me a measurable level of discomfort.
I wonder what would become of our generation if, somehow, there was a universal crash of cell phone towers and internet connections. Could we recover from our electronic addictions, or would there be faltering functionality between human beings from forever, on ward? Perhaps that's a bit drastic; but I implore any readers to just look at how they relate to other people because of technology. Sitting at home on one's computer is not solitude, for it is a connection to others...But it is, in itself, isolation. I think writer Paul Carvel said it best. "Internet: absolute communication, absolute communication." Even now, I'm alone in a classroom on my off period.
How are we all not subject to this in some small way? Cell phones, iPods, and internet access have become staples in everyday life. Yes, of course, there are great benefits to this technology, but there are also serious downfalls. The Regents of England took walks for entertainment. What a different world is this.