Ready, steady, go! In the morning millions of people on public transport get to work and stay glued to the displays of their portable phones, the so-called smart phones. While they wait, they stay glued, while they talk, they stay glued, phone in hand, as if it were a western Colt, ready to be used at the slightest sign of threat. In only fifteen minutes they can do a lot of things, in fifteen minutes they know how the weather will be, as if they could not look out the window or feel the air on their faces, they know the news of the world, of this one and, perhaps, of others, filtered, of course, by their own preferences carefully and continuously collected by the free services they use, thinking they are enjoying something neutral, highly informative. They have heard the news from friends, or e-friends, a hundred, a thousand, the more the better, as if it were possible to cultivate deep friendship with more than a few people. They have said that they like this and don't like that, exposing their intimacy to the world, proudly or unconsciously. From bad to worse, they have seen the state of the stock exchange in New York, Tokyo and various other cities in different time zones, the price, very reasonable even, of the things they would like to buy, high definition photos of the bodies that they would like to have, the very expensive prices of the products necessary for such bodies to sculpt, the price of seminars, courses, personal improvement products, because, as advertising well knows, we are always a little bit short of our true desires, we must always be evolving, improving, always improving until we are more-than-perfect and after that, improving perfection, there is always someone ready to handle our apparent imperfection and to profit from that. They have seen how long it takes to arrive and the best way to get there, after inserting two long numbers in the GPS reader and forgetting how to read a map, at home, before going out and perhaps getting lost, and having to ask someone the way. They finger frantically, write malformed words, unusual abbreviations, ending up, simply, and because time is short, always short, very short, to abbreviate even the soul. All this requires a lot of energy, the battery runs out, and the first person to find the plug hidden behind the train seat or near the alarm signal of the moving carriage, is the winner, phone charged, ready for another flow of fresh information, always fresh, because in a minute, everything can change, it is necessary to be on top of the event, even better, in the event, and this is possible, yes, it is possible because we are always connected, always connected and always connecting to what others like, to our far-fetched virtual image, always connected, to the video we made, always connected, to the very funny video we received from one of those friends, always connected, to the flickering image we sinfully hide - but shouldn't we share? - always connected, to who said what, how and where, to the dress of the popstar, always connected, always talking and always talking, and we don't look at the face of the person next to us, we don't see the landscape passing by, we don't get bored, that's not even possible, they don't leave us time for that. We ignore the look on the children's faces that seek the attention they don't get because they can't compete with so much information, so much technology, intelligent and artificial, and, damn it, very sexy, full of action. How I love my little screen! ah, how I love my phone, it's my most beloved jewel that I take with me wherever I go, that sleeps by my side, the most precious thing I have, it has everything there, everything I am, it gives me everything, everything I need, everything I want, everything I didn't even know I wanted, a perfect lover. Honestly, sometimes I'm amazed with so much free abundance, but who will pay for all of this? I wonder... but it doesn't matter, I'm on the net, on the nets, I'm connected, I'm everywhere, and I have a lot of friends, lol, you know? blah blah blah...