By DONNA LANGE-TUCKER

Copy Editor

Take a walk, or drive anywhere today, and half the people you see are communicating via some means of electronic gadget. Talking on cell phones wasn’t good enough—now everyone is friending, texting, tweeting, clicking or beeping or whatever they call it now. Doesn’t anyone talk face to face anymore? And is it really necessary to know everything the instant it happens? Some people have taken techno-mania too far and are finally being spanked for it.

According to espn.com, Milwaukee Bucks forward Charlie Villanueva got a talking-to from Coach Skiles after the coach learned Villanueva tweeted a message from his mobile phone during halftime of Sunday’s home victory over the Boston Celtics. This was Villanueva’s breaking-news message: “In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We’re playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up.”

Apparently Coach Skiles felt that Villanueva’s tweet might have given the impression that he and other players weren’t being “serious and focused at all times” about their game.

Now, I know this was just a basketball game and not a matter of global importance, so who really cares if some jock took some time out to play with his phone? But what was he really telling anyone? Nothing, as far as I can see. Why bother?

More important examples of technology overload are the recent discoveries that jurors are violating court instructions by researching the cases on the Internet, or using Twitter and Facebook to send updates during trials.

According to nytimes.com, “jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based on only the facts the judge has decided are admissible, and they are not supposed to see evidence that has been excluded as prejudicial.” But now, using their phones, jurors can Google the name of a defendant, violating the legal system’s complex rules of evidence. They can also instantly tell their friends what’s happening in the jury room, even though they are supposed to keep their opinions and deliberations secret.

Some of these cases have ended in mistrials or are being appealed by attorneys who plan to use the Internet research and postings as grounds for appeal.

What is going on here and what were the jurors thinking? When did common sense get replaced with an addiction for pushing little buttons on a phone? Maybe we’re finally seeing the cell phones’ damaging effects of too much time spent too close to the users’ brains. Enough is enough.