“Abandon your mobile phone, laptop, iPod, and all such links to family, friends and work colleagues. Concentrate on where you are and derive your entertainment from immediate stimuli, the tangible world around you. Increasingly, in hostels and guesthouses one sees ‘independent’ travelers eagerly settling down in front of computers instead of conversing with fellow travelers. They seem only partially ‘abroad,’ unable to cut their links with home. Evidently the nanny state – and the concomitant trend among parents to overprotect offspring – has alarmingly diminished the younger generation’s self-reliance. And who is to blame for this entrapment in cyberspace? The fussy folk back at base, awaiting the daily (or twice daily) e-mail of reassurance.”
Dervla Murphy