Our local newspaper has a daily sports section, but only a once-a-week arts section, on Thursdays. Even that is maybe eight pages. This is in one of the top 10 biggest cities in the US (not NY or LA, though).
This is an area where I agree with the OP. I wish there was a lot more local arts coverage.
Yeah maybe the Dr office was a bad example. I was looking for examples where the phone has become a de facto pacifier.
I can’t help but wonder how many times you would come across VERBOTTEN!! 
The Chairlift. It amazes me. Before you attach to the main cable, the phones are already out.
Chicago Trib. Today’s paper has a Business section combined with Nation& World and Arts&Living.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
You ain’t kidding.
At the risk of derailing this thread, I’d like to broaden it a bit.
While I share some of your “idiosyncrasies”, my feelings of being out of touch run deeper. I’ve always had a hard time communicating with people. I’ve never fitted in.
My earliest memories of kindergarten are me back against a wall, clutching my schoolbag, watching the other kids play. I never had many friends growing up, I have absolutely none now. When I was 6 of 7, I remember looking at a bright red light at the top of our Christmas tree and thinking “I’m not from this planet, I’m from that star”.
I did try to come out of my shell, with some success, in my late teens-early twenties. Not trying to brag, but I happened to be good-looking, did very well at University and discovered that I could be funny. And yet, all my relationships have failed. So, I now find myself at 48 still trying to figure out how this whole “socializing” thing works and why I’ve got it so completely wrong over and over again.
Somehow, it seems that I either bore people or creep them out. Even here, I suspect that I’ve already rubbed some of you the wrong way. I really, really do not mean to, but I do. Obviously, I have a problem. For all I know, I could actually be a bad person. I just have absolutely no clue why.
It would seem to me being on the spectrum might explain it all.
I don’t follow sports. At all. 95% of the “guy” conversations are about sports, and they look at me funny because I have nothing to say. On top of that, I’m politically conservative but I hate Trump, am agnostic, and am pro-science. Which puts me in a tiny tiny minority.
Phones in people’s faces constantly and the weird passive aggressive pictures or video of people being rude or inconsiderate but no one doing anything at the time just recording to post on social media is making everyone strange.
We seem to WANT to be outraged.
Yup on religion. Don’t care one bit.
Sports too. Waste of time. I just came back from Pittsburgh. Those people are RABID sports fans. I sort of feel sorry for them.
I do have a cell phone, if it rings and I’m around people, I politely excuse myself.
Getting ‘dressed up’. Now, I don’t think I’m in the big minority here, but I despise getting dressed up.
Agreed. My grandfather didn’t find out he was autistic until he was 84, when my son displayed the signs and he said, “That’s perfectly normal! I was the same way.”
It can’t hurt to look into it. I was 34 when I was diagnosed with ADHD and it really helped me contextualize a lot of my life and not be so hard on myself.
Everyone (or at least most people) feel out of touch with modern society. It is one of its own most prominent characteristics. Our species carries forward a large body of beliefs, viewpoints, assumptions, and interpretations as socially shared axioms. Problem is, a huge chunk of those evolved alongside of agricultural existence and a set of norms that persisted with only minor changes from 10,000 years ago until the 1800s (with an almost exponential increase in the rate of change).
In response, we’ve opened up communication quite a bit since then, increasing the amount of input that individuals can have, but it’s been like wishing to know the lives and experiences of modern people by hanging some good microphones over New York and Tokyo and listening in — you mostly get a lot of din and overlapping babble. We, as a species, have not assembled a coherent new set of axiomatic beliefs. We’ve just knocked the foundations of the old ones asunder, so most people have a very flimsy confidence in belief systems that were once rock-solid, but instead of a good new set, we’ve got a bunch of contradictory and chaotically incoherent notions and a worrisome sense that nothing makes much sense, and a zillion contradictory would-be leaders who can’t all be right.
[/hijack]
Umm, yeah. I do. I could embrace any or all of a dozen labels for how I’m “different”, some of which I do (genderqueer, schizophrenic libber) others of which I don’t tend to so much (autistic, borderline and/or schizotypal personality disorder), but I don’t think the problem lies in me. Worried about that for years (who wouldn’t?) but I really think we live in “interesting times”.
Sime people feel they have to define themselves by what they don’t like.
I’m in love with the modern world
Massachusetts when it’s late at night
And the neon when it’s cold outside
I have both. In addition to my employer’s laptop, I have three of my own laptops (a mac which is my computer-of-record, a small, portable PC that I take with me on vacation, or take to bed if I want to watch TV in bed, and a larger PC that I bought for gaming.) I also have a smart phone. I happen to be typing this on a laptop, but 90% of my posting to the straight dope is from my phone. (Thus the weird typos.) I like that I can carry it around. I like that I can read it in bed before I get up for the day.
I assume this is an answer to the question of the OP.
And I agree. I don’t feel out of touch at all. Do I have different interests than many people? Of course. So does everyone else. Do I “fit in” to every group? Of course not. Neither does anyone.
There’s been research into “how to make friends”. Basically, you need to spend time with the same people over and over. And those little interactions add up, and if you interact regularly with the sort of people you might hit it off with, eventually a friendship can form. If you want to have more friends, I recommend picking up some hobbies that bring you to the same place with the same people week after week. Take an in-person language class, or a cooking class. Or learn to dance and attend social dances. (I square dance. But folk dance, ballroom, contra dancing, etc. have similar social dynamics.) Or volunteer at a soup kitchen. Do something you like, or will take value from, even if you don’t meet people you like, because you will have to spend a lot of time doing it, and there’s no guarantee it will work. If the first thing you try doesn’t pan out, try something else.
I prefer using a laptop to post here, but I agree with everything else. I have 2 pretty new laptops (work and personal) and still find I’m browsing/posting a ton from my phone. And some social media experiences are better on a phone - Facebook, Twitter, etc.
As for the OP, amusingly I’m the complete opposite of each of their points… maybe that means I’m super in touch with the people of today! Points for me! 
When I said “out of touch”, my thinking is more, “why do so many people seem so interested in these things that I have no interest in?” And conversely, “Why are so few people interested in these things I think are great?”
Of course, the upside is, I just made reservations for 2 music camps at which I will be studying, sharing meals, and playing with absolutely world class musicians. Unquestionably long the world’s best players of my favorite music. And - IMO - for extremely reasonable prices. 
One of the joys of having a somewhat obscure passion is the connection between me and the top of the activity is much closer than - say - if I wanted to attend a baseball camp with pro players, or someone who wanted to study with rock or classical musicians.
If rock or classical aren’t your thing, you must be into jazz. If so, that kind of automatically puts you into a fringe of sorts. The “bandcamp” sounds like a good idea. Birds of a feather, etc.
I’ve attended several meetup events since my ex and I broke up last summer. Concerts, guided tours, hikes and “coffee morning” get-togethers, with mixed results.
I always enjoy the activities themselves, so that’s good. But in terms of socializing, it really depends.
I try to start conversations with the other participants. Most of the times, they end quickly and I spend the rest of the time pretty much silent. Once, it even backfired spectacularly with someone very deliberately moving away from me in front of everyone. Occasionally, I end up having pleasant discussions with some people, but it never goes much further than that.
Yes, I’ve thought about it. Not being a psychologist, I’m reluctant (and unable) to self-diagnose, of course. I should look into it, but getting appointments for possibly autistic adults is difficult where I live.
There was a documentary on that about a year ago, and the interviewees all mentioned that it had taken them years, sometimes decades to get a doctor to listen to them. This is slowly changing, though and these people alll described how relieved they felt when they were diagnosed as autistic. A sort of well-that-explains-everything kind of epiphany.