Reminds me of a line in a song by Marques Bovre and the Evil Twins:

"You've been taught to be stupid, by trivial people, all white noise and numb."

Many years ago, my brother and I were throwing back a coupla beers, complaining about work, et. al. He told me about some co-workers who weren't reading their Emails. They didn't understand it, so they figured they could ignore it. They were upset with him for daring to use something that they "couldn't", to try to communicate with them. I suggested an experiment, which, my brother being the iconoclast that he is, he actually tried. He didn't answer his phone for a coupla days. It became clear pretty quick that he was around, but not answering. When asked why, he said "oh, gee, I didn't understand what that chirping box was. So I just ignored it."