It’s an irony of modern times that the technology designed to bring us together is driving us apart.

Take the telephone, for instance. Who actually takes a telephone call from a real, live person anymore? Because of the pervasive presence of robocalls, everyone screens their incoming calls. Unfamiliar numbers that pop up on caller ID are left unanswered to avoid the chance of once again speaking to an android who’s been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.

And attempting to make a call to someone is also an invitation to torture. Trying to connect with a dentist, lawyer or doctor or call a business with a complaint or suggestion forces the caller into running the gauntlet of prerecorded messages and suggested extensions that branch off into yet more prerecorded messages. It takes 10 minutes to even get this merry-go-round started because, as an emotionless voice informs the caller, “Please listen to the entire message because some of the options have changed.”

Once the caller finally reaches the extension of the person he was trying to reach — oh, an hour later — nine times out of ten, he’s greeted with the final prerecorded insult: “So-and-so is unavailable. Please leave a message at the sound of the beep.”

Television used to be something that would unite a nation in times of triumph and tragedy. Uncle Walter Cronkite would tell us “That’s the way it is,” and most viewers accepted that it pretty much was the way it was. People gathered around their sets to watch the moon landing, the funeral of a president or the fall of the towers.

Now, the broadcast networks are increasingly irrelevant. People are turning to streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu or Apple TV+ for their entertainment. It’s easy to see why: mostly there are no commercials and a viewer can watch shows on their own time and at their own convenience.

But as the streaming services divvy up their audience into smaller and more specialized segments, the nation is losing a shared narrative. A viewer who only watches Fox News and Shudder will eventually come to believe in a different reality than his neighbor who views only CNBC and the Hallmark Channel.

And that’s not even mentioning the internet. Once hailed as an invention that could put the entire knowledge of Western civilization in the hands of anyone, it has devolved into a wasteland of political rants, pop-up ads, viruses and other unwelcome intruders who want your money, your personal information or both.

So to avoid the abuse, the trouble and the unpleasantness pouring into our screens, our eyes and our ears, we unplug our phones, avoid the newscasts to binge-watch an entire season of "The Great British Baking Show“ in one evening and shun that nut down the road who voted for that candidate we hated.

And the nation continues to break into smaller and smaller fragments that have nothing in common with each other but suspicion.

— EKF