Last night I watched the re-broadcast of Walter Cronkite's historic coverage of the moon landing in 1969 and became blubberingly nostalgic for the technologically uncluttered days of my youth. The simplicity of a man sitting at a desk reporting the news while looking straight into the camera is something we don't get anymore. It's also, unfortunately, something that most Americans wouldn't be able to sit still for.

I remember the night of July 20, 1969 with crystal clarity despite the four decades which have elapsed. My family gathered around the television and we were transfixed. Unfidgeting, undistracted, four sets of eyes we were -  locked onto the set as we hung on every single word and each grainy image. 

My brother and I would run outside occasionally to the "Command Center" we had set up in our backyard tent to check the lunar surface. We were camping out in the yard that night because I was certain that I could see the astronauts up there walking around - simply with the aid of my dime store binoculars. I was six, he was nine and he indulged my blissful naivete with uncharacteristic generosity that night.

If an event of such enormous magnitude in the history of human civilization took place today, the scenario would be completely different.

We'd be on techno overload. The flat panel display with high def would be on in the living room and we might even all be there together as a family, but that wouldn't be enough. Our laptops would also be humming away and we'd be updating our facebooks, and tweeting and making cell phone calls and uploading photos and videos. We'd be documenting our own experience of the event while any one of a handful of generic broadcasters droned away in the background. Even the news reporters themselves might be tweeting and checking incoming email while the cameras roll! And that would be perfectly acceptable!

It's no wonder 1 in 20 children in the United States are being diagnosed with ADHD.

I think ADHD is caused by ADND - Attention Deficit News Disorder.

Over the past forty years, news coverage has evolved (or devolved) depending on one's perspective, to the point of unrecognizability from the stark days of Conkrite. We demand more stimulation, but assimilate  far less information. We are overly accustomed to swooshing flashes of color and multiple split screens with spinning inserts. Neverending, yet repetitive, news tickers crawl across both the top and bottom of the TV. Station identifiers, accompanied by zooming images and sounds, splash around like miniature explosions. Digital clocks updated from every time zone, every second, remind us unfailingly just how late we are. Ads about upcoming shows featuring miniature holograms of stars interacting with each other play on the bottom right hand corner of the screen, startling us out of our complacency. Full size drag and drop displays are manipulated by the anchors as they walk around the set at random times during the show. With 24/7 news we get it all day and night, but are we even paying attention?

A random progression of screen shots from broadcasts over the years demonstrates how significantly things have changed. 

1970

1980

1985

1993

2009

We are moving so fast, we have forgotten how to sit and listen to someone like Walter Cronkite. We're virtually assaulted with information, but we're less engaged and we aren't any smarter. And even worse than that, we have become so very rude.

Dylan Ratigan's new show "Morning Meeting" is a perfect example of just how far we have fallen. He rants, he raves and he interrupts his guests while they all talk over each other in a classic, unintelligible ADND melee.

And we wonder why children these days aren't learning simple manners and don't know how to be quiet when someone is talking or don't understand what being respectful means.

We shake our heads and shrug our shoulders as the loudmouth in the grocery store line gabs incessantly into his bluetooth device with utter disregard for those around him.

We wonder why the person in front of us lets the door slam in our face, until we realize he's texting furiously and has completely no idea what's going on around him. And we think it's normal. And even worse, we have come to accept it.

Sometimes I really miss the good old days.