It is my daughter’s birthday today. A lot of guests came. Mostly her girlfriends with their husbands. I did not want to interfere; it was her night after all. Thus I stood in the balcony and listened.

Noise and chaos, as if we were on the stock market before the recession. I rejoice.  That generation truly knows how to have fun. Practically without drinking. Although they’re smoking like pirates. Everything seems okay but the conversations are strange. More and more they say just: "Yeah" and "Nah" and laugh somehow unfriendly. Then one giggles, then another laughs like crazy. Maybe they were divided into groups?

I decide to take a leap of faith and enter the living room and... Oh My God! They all stare on their cellphones. There’s even a couple that sits at the same table and talk to each other on the phone. Well, I do not need this kind of communication. They amuse themselves quite fine. I see that they will manage without me here thus I'll go to my grandson’s room, I'll have fun there.

Though as soon as I see my grandson he is all glued to the computer. Some strategic game he plays. “Witcher” if I recall. How can he play that game for hours? It will be there at his disposal for ages. Will I? My thoughts keep distracting me from my initial goal. I suggest:

“Let's play football or go for a walk.” No answer. As if I am looking at a person with Down syndrome.

Then my daughter comes to his rescue; the phone never leaves its rightful place near her ear. She looks at my grandson, her son, and says:

"You've been staring at the computer for nearly four hours now. Let your eyes rest.”

He grumbles, but he obeys. The computer is turned off and, as soon as his mother left, he takes out that new console from under the bed and another game begins.

Remembering that I was still in the room he only waved at me: "Can’t you see I’m busy?" One minute later, my daughter comes in and takes his console away. He is not affected at all. Just pulls out his mobile phone and again his eyes are on the screen.

Desperate, I went to the kitchen to see my wife. Oh, my lovely wife. She won't disappoint me, she... Goodness! That phone zombification is everywhere! She is discussing a recipe with someone on her smartphone. I feel surrounded.

Suddenly, my grandson came to the kitchen. "Grandpa," he says, "give me your cell. I need to call a friend.”

“Here you go,” I answer “Make your call, if it is so important.” All the while I was thinking that my daughter must have confiscated his phone too.

I tiptoe to his room and what do I see, he is already playing a game on my devise. In the living room we have a call center, in the kitchen a live cooking show and here in front of me this year’s GameCon.

That bloody technology separated us all! The initial idea was to make people come closer to each other. But wherever you go nowadays everyone is holding a phone. Most of them, like my very own grandson, do not even need it at a young age. Everybody is willing to send a message through the social media or talk on the phone to a person that they really miss. But are they willing to meet that person and have a decent conversation without looking at their phones? You know, really see the person in front of you, not through a screen.

I feel so alone. I see so many people around me but all of them stare at their phone. There is nobody to talk to unless I hold my mobile.” I went to my room. Turned sideways on the bed and decided to write this story. On the computer. I bring my apologies to you all but having Parkinson’s disease I cannot hold a pen let alone write something that others will be able to decipher. The computer became my salvation. I may do a lot of mistakes but I try to do my best.

Several days have passed and I straggle as usual to open the writing software on this device. My grandson who is currently a 6th grader comes in and requests my help with his homework. I sat with him and solved the first mathematical problem. Then the second, then the third, but I got stuck on the fourth. The child averts his gaze from me to his mobile phone and after a couple of minutes announces:

"Grandpa, you solved the problem correctly so far, but there is another, quicker solution."

“How do you know?”

“Here, take a look” He shows me his big and flat cellphone and there, on the screen, the entire problem and its solution are displayed.

“So why are you asking me to solve the problem if you already have the solution?”

“In order to make sure that you will be able to solve these problems in case the Internet will stop existing.”

There you have it. We are now only considered as a reserve option. We ought to do something, or the screen of the phone will replace our faces, our thoughts, our individuality.

Hell, why am I even writing all this? I should be out enjoying life…