Sometimes I call myself a "slave to the dial." It only struck me yesterday how apt that glib phrase is. The headsets we wear are like yokes for the brain, locking us into the session both physically and mentally. The autodialer sits over to the side of the room, a beige metal box on wheels, about the size of a two-drawer filing cabinet. It looks totally inert, but in reality it is astonishingly active; it's making phones ring across the country and feeding the calls to us. We are slaves to its process.

I even have a number, 183888, which is all the dialer wants to know. It never asks for my name when I log in.

Now I've gotten silly, but this is a very serious topic. What is the real reason so many Americans are cynical, disenchanted and angry? Telemarketing. After all, the telephone network is the nervous system of our modern society, and telemarketing has infected this system like a virus, like a cancer. The effect of this spreading malaise is that people have been forced to become more wary, to put up their guard even in their own homes...

Another random thought: computers are products of the Industrial Revolution -- they're totally Second Wave! Whatever airs users may give themselves, the computers themselves are still produced through industrial processes.