I’m always fascinated with how far technology will go to make people less and less social. Yet as far away from each other as we get, with our home entertainment and our personal computers, we keep wanting to be interactive, though on a much more artificial level.

That’s why we need this new special feature on the HD DVD for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Thanks to the ethernet capability of HD DVD players, you can now watch the movie at home while your friends watch it in-synch with you via their own HD DVD players. And I guess you can chat with them through your remote control. Or you can talk on a party line like we did when I was in high school and jointly watching MTV with my friends.

Meanwhile, we also need to be able to go to the movies while hanging out in our virtual world. Fortunately, Warner Bros. has appropriately licensed The Matrix to Gaia Online so we can do just that. Additionally, Sony has provided the “fastest growing online hangout” with the movie Gattaca. Both films will be available at “Gaia Cinemas” a place where your and other people’s avatars can meet up and pretend you’re at the movies. Or maybe it’s not pretending? I guess you’re all actually watching the thing.

I guess I’m just one of those ignorants who eat the steak and don’t worry about it. Meanwhile, I’m about to go hang out with some real people. Maybe we’ll go watch a movie in a real theater where we don’t look at or speak to each other. Hmmm. Same as it ever was.