Ordinary people are so addicted to their shiny screens that real life has become too difficult for them. A few years ago, while working on my most recent startup, I was sitting at a table with my CTO and his two young developers. The CTO and I were making eye contact and talking to each other, but the two young devs were instant-messaging each other because real-life face-to-face contact was too emotionally challenging for them.

No doubt in the dating world a similar phenomenon is at work, whereby texting is fun but anything that looks like it could lead to a real-world encounter is far too scary to continue with. Sad but inevitable, given our modern addiction to make-believe life lived entirely within the confines of a tiny screen.