EDIT: v2

In our current society, we are conditioned to only meet people in certain situations - at bars, events, maybe the classroom, and recently, on-line dating. I meet people who say, "well, I don't go to bars so I don't know where to meet new people" and it amazes me how much of a grip modern social society has on them. The fact is, we pass people in the outside world all the time - in the grocery store, the convenience store, on campus, at the gym, waiting at a red light, or at a bus stop or on the bus, and even right there on the street - passing these people by without a second thought. But that's it - we pass them because modern society has conditioned us to think it's somehow rude or awkward to strike up a conversation with these people. To smile at them or say a mere hello. With technology consuming our attention from iPods to tablets, we immerse ourselves into our minds more and more as our once thriving social inherent biology crashes under these technologies. Imagine before any of this technology was invented. When no one wore headphones or looked at their touch screen phone playing Angry Birds, Flappy Bird, or whatever new fad there is at the moment. Our minds constantly pushed to the limit of information overload tearing our attention spans apart to the point where anything longer than 15 seconds is overlooked.

And what about the future? With augmented glasses ready to bombard our reality with the unreality and confuse our minds even further how are we as a social species ever going to survive? Our minds conditioned from birth to ignore our very need to connect with each other because the media says its wrong. Think about this - you walk into an elevator and someone else is there too - what do you do? Maybe have brief eye contact? A meaningless smile out of courtesy? Or maybe you intentionally avoid all eye contact and stand there in your little imaginary bubble, pretending that a whole other human being, with thoughts, ideas, dreams, fears, an entire life of information - doesn't even exist right there - right there next to you for those few seconds on that ride up to the 4th floor? Your headphones in your ears blocking out any possible communication that person may want - need - because that's what we are built to do. The saddest part of it all being we don't even think twice about this. While in that elevator, we may have a small awkward feeling in the back of our heads - a small reminisce of our primal selves that we've habitually blocked out through years of suppression. But we are used to it, it doesn't phase us anymore because we've all done this a thousand times - Ignored that person standing right next to us in the elevator. We've been conditioned so early this way most of us can't even imagine this being the wrong way to do things. But no matter how many times we tell ourselves this is the way society should act, our bodies tell us this isn't the way by giving us that feeling of awkwardness we've worked so hard to suppress.

It's easier to think of it this way - say you needed to wait in an empty room with one door. You walk in and there's one person right there just standing there and you walk near them and stand there too just waiting to leave. You don't say hi, or smile, or even acknowledge their existence. Just stand there waiting for your time to leave. How awkward is that? But this is the thing, this is what we are essentially doing in an elevator. We are just so programmed to ignore our natural process of communication that our bodies adapt and many of us are just used to it by now. After spending your life walking in this room to stand there next to a random person not saying a word, it becomes "natural", your awkwardness depletes until you become the same programmed human being walking into an elevator with a stranger with your headphones in, texting away as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

Studies have shown that without adequate social interaction, our bodies deteriorate as if we were smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Don't believe me? Look it up. We are so programmed to be social our bodies will actually break down and die if we don't continuously nourish our minds with social interaction. With a world where doctors push medications for depression and ADD, we never stop to think that maybe, just maybe, our bodies just need a little break from the never-ending onslaught of vines and 140 character posts that consume our minds - destroying it from the inside out. Next time you are outside and see a person - smile, say hi, strike up a conversation. Because not only are you saving the life of a complete stranger from a total social disintegration - you are saving yourself from it at the same time.