the loss of public social space

John Naughton writes in the Guardian about the loss of public social interaction. He places a lot of the blame on technology:

It’s not clear when all of this changed, but my guess is that technology – in the shape of the Sony Walkman – had a lot to do with it. As the Walkman de nos jours, the iPod is simply continuing what Sony started. But not even Sony could have single-handedly destroyed the notion of social space. The coup de grce [sic] was administered by another piece of technology: the mobile phone.

Living in NYC, I’m well-positioned to observe the effect that mobile phones and iPods have on public interaction, but I would guess that the main factor in people not talking to each other on the street as much as they used to (in America at least) is cultural rather than technological (…)