Are smart phone ruining our social lives?

I was thinking about evolution the other day.  I mean sure, biological evolution makes sense in a simple environment, hunting and gathering and what not.  But what about modern society?  Think about how rapidly technology has changed, just in your own lifetime.  There is no question, technology is evolving at a much faster rate than biological evolution, but how will this effect us?  furthermore, the 'world' seems to fail to keep up with technology.  If you were alive in the 80s, you'd definately beleive me when I say the world you grew up in is gone, so how do we cope with such rapid growth?

I guess for the most part I'm talking about mobile phones, and n extension smart phones.  I feel like we live in a 'get with it or get out of the way' world when it comes to phones and communications.  Consider your grandparents.  Do they have a mobile phone?  Can they operate it?  Lets hit closer to home.. Imagine if you didn't have a mobile phone for.. lets say a month.  Your own personal losses aside, would people start to get mad at you?  What about your work? 

Availability is starting to become a virtue in work, and it's becoming more of an expectation to be contactable 24/7, it's more or less 'expected' that we can be called at any time and asked to cover a shift, and really thats definitely a negative.  Wouldn't it be great if we lived in a world where you could enjoy a meal out knowing your boss can't possibly call you to come in tomorrow morning? 

The rapid evolution of the mobile phone may also be negatively impacting on the social world.   I've read a few articles, and it seems most of them suggest this access to technology may be stunting our social growth, as it is much easier to hide behind your phone than meet new people and make conversation.  Say you're at a party and you don't know anyone.  How do people deal with awkward moments now as opposed to pre-smart phone era?  Sure, having facebook everywhere you go is going to keep you 'close' to your close friends and pre-existing connections, but in doing so it's limiting your capacity to create new ties or branches.  And what does this mean, say 10 years after high school for example.  Lets say you left high school with 30 friends.  10 years later, you've only maintained a relationship with 3 of them (because really it does happen), but you've also failed to create many new friends, lets say you have two new friends.  Yes, five good friends is more than anyone needs, but the point I'm trying to get across is that the rate of friends lost will move much faster than the rate of friends gained.  Say we look 30 years after high school, and you, the bitter, unlikeable person you are, has managed to maintain no friends, but you're capacity to talk to strangers and make new friends has been stunted to the point where you've also made no new friends. Well, unless you're counting cats as friends, then everyone will be ok. 

Just an afterthought on smart phones, why do iPads even exist?  seems like the first thing you do in a recession is cut middle management, so why invent a middleman technology between smart phones and laptops.  I'm really quite against tablets altogether though, but I just really don't see the point of them.. except this...

OBLIGATORY CAT LINK!

Did you know they have iPad aps for cats?  hmm back to evolution... iPads+Cats= super intelligent cats?  I hope so.