I ask myself this question daily as I see people turning to texting for their social interaction. I can barely have a meal with someone, let alone a face-to-face conversation, without their texting getting in the way. When did it become more important to answer the text on your phone than speak to a friend in person?

Some days I just want to ditch my cell phone all together and go back to the good old days — when you couldn't get ahold of someone unless they were home and actually had a land line. Land lines aren't so bad.

When I was a kid we were on a party line. Okay, I realize that sentence makes me sound like I am 60, but I assure you I am not, I just grew up in a town that was a little slow on the uptake. Anyway, having a party line was the most exciting thing ever to me.

For any of those unfamiliar with the idea of a party line, it was when multiple households shared the same phone line. You could pick up the phone to call someone and find your neighbor talking to her mother. Basically, you couldn't use the phone unless no one else in the party line was. This sucked for anyone who shared a party line with a household full of teenage girls.

The party line seemed like the ideal thing for me, because I like to snoop — I got it from my mother (check her blog out). I like to walk by houses in the evening that have lights on and their curtains open and I especially enjoy hearing people talking on their phone. Imagine being privy to several of your neighbors and their private phone conversations. Unfortunately for me, we lived in a neighborhood populated with several seniors and a lot of boring people.

Back to my point: put away your friggin' cell phone already and look me in the eyes when I am talking to you!

I spoke to my mom on Skype the other day and a lightbulb went off. Why couldn't I use Skype and my out of town relatives and friends as virtual babysitters?

First of all let me say that Kyle, our oldest, is almost 14 and has been babysitting for us for a while now, so we don't have toddlers or infants or anything. (That would be wrong — child and family services might even be called in this instance.) There is a time though when having Kyle babysit, isn't really like babysitting at all. They all just yell and fight and call us on our cell phones every 10 minutes until we get home.

So, for times like these I think I may set my computer up in one room of the house and call my mom, my sister, my friend Maxine or my in-laws on Skype. It would require my children to sit in the same room the whole time we are gone, but it would allow the "babysitter" to keep an eye on them, yell at them if necessary and send us updates via MMS.

Let's take this a step further.  Maybe I don't even have to work outside the home. I can start my very own virtual babysitting service. People can call my Skype number and I can watch their kids from the comfort of my own home without having to actually do much.

Isn't technology amazing?????