An email, doing the rounds presently, shows several pictures of the new generation — the iPhoneys — in all social situations including driving, at fast food joints or visiting museums and having a coffee "together" — all busily sending phooey inane messages to other iPhoneys on their technologically isolating tool... but the blame for this, according to the email, is the way we construct our societies in larger hubs, where the social interaction is not with immediate people around us anymore, but with "virtual friends"... 

The email says something like this:

"Cities are sociopathic entities, they isolate individuals and they evolve technological solutions to the anonymity that allows crime and alienation to flourish, the people that send these messages are seeing the result - not the cause.... when families and clans are split by poor transport and socio-economic greed then mobile networks and social media flourish. Can you think of a better solution?"

To me, crime and alienation exists in the same proportion in smaller communities, but the number of such increases with the larger the groups... Thus for an individual, the bad deeds and alienation becomes more obvious at the street level, as one also becomes weary to connect with "strangers" and thus prefers isolation...