Benevolence thrust too far

Lately, I keep seeing signs at stores and in offices that have to remind people how it's rude to talk on your cell phone while you're being served.  Even going into the temple they have to tell you to turn your phone off and not bring it into the session with you.  I think these things ought to be obvious, but apparently they're not, and I think it's sad.  I also think it's sad that talking to people over the internet is so addicting that all of us occasionally miss out on spending time with our family who is RIGHT HERE in order to do it.  

I remember as cell phones and different social interfaces and things were becoming more prevalent people were so excited about how technology was "bringing people together" because we can get to know people on the other side of the world as conveniently as our own neighbors and yet, now, we ARE getting to know people on the other side of the world instead of our neighbors and even our families, and people won't even get off their stupid phones for five minutes to have a face-to-face conversation with a real person.  This paradox keeps bringing me back to a quote from The Screwtape Letters read in General Conference last year:

“Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient’s soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary.”

Isn't that exactly what these convenient communications technologies are enabling?  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be here occasionally to keep in touch with people I can't see in person as often as I'd like, and to share news and whatever quickly (AND with pictures) but I think we all need to be a little more careful about when and how often, and it worries me how easy it is to lose track of time with this stuff.  Let's not forget while we're talking to China, that there are people all around us we may be ignoring.

And don't even get me started on the degradation of the English language through texting...!