The Death of Daydreaming

> moments used to be given over to silent reflection or conversation with whoever is around

Noticeable on pubic transit particularly

I used to ride busses before cell phones and smartphones and no one was exactly striking up conversations back then either

I'm sure it happens, but it seemed rare to me. People read books or magazines, or were just too cramped and crowded to bother trying to interact

It's been over 40 years since I last stepped onto a school bus, but it was always a raucous place, requiring bus drivers to be fairly strong authority figures to keep the kids in their seats. I wonder if it's like a tomb now, with all heads bowed over their phones.

The population of bus riders skews younger—even excluding the school bus, I think, lots of folks public transit are young professionals and college student. The nostalgia for a time that didn’t actually happen hits this crew early.

I used to ride the train to and from work, I'd usually read the paper (cheap if you bought it in the afternoon) or sleep (most mornings).

Yes

For college students they likely almost always find themselves surrounded by familiar faces, even classmates, because they are all going to class at the same time on the same transit

So yeah, it would be easier to strike up a random conversation with people you recognize from campus or just people who are all part of your similar demographic

I am riding public transit to my uni for 5 years by now and the number of times I was approached for a casual conversation is 0 for today :D

I never saw anything like that happen.

I can't even begin to imagine the hell that telepathic like electronic message services provide children in these environments. It was bad enough when there was at least the possibility of moderation by adults.

As someone who was once a child who liked to read on the bus the new world sounds nice.

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Neither here nor there, but the photographer was Stanley Kubrick

The thing is if you saw someone back then who did not put the paper or book down while say, crossing the street, going up the stairs, using an escalator, using a urinal, ordering from a cashier, picking up takeout, every waking moment there was, you'd assume they had some sort of pathology going on.