The cost (not the price) of gas

I paid $4.39 a gallon for gas the other morning -- $50 to fill up my little car. I was contemplating taking the long way home that morning, to go by the Post Office and get my mail, but decided to save the gas and double up on a trip later. I recalled living through much of the 80s without a telephone and communicating mostly by mail. I couldn’t wait to get to the Post office to find out who wrote and what was said. Some weeks it was only once -- like when I was at the East Pole; others when i was on the boats I could go every day. Now things have changed, I have a couple of telephones but seldom use them, I get mail maybe once a week and it is mostly bills. I communicate now by email and instant messaging and texting. And, now, I put off going to the Post Office to save a little of that $4.39 gas. I have read that this sort of communication tends to isolate people.... we use our electronics instead of our voices and seldom speak on the phone, let alone in person. We become islands, maybe lose communications skills except to speak in text language -- u kno wut I meen? jk nvm lol. So with that in mind I wondered about not making the longer trip for mail. Is the price of gasoline going to isolate us further? Will we put off visits with friends, going out when we can stay home, those little trips maybe necessary maybe not that get us out of the house for a while and interact with others. I figured out the other night that it's cheaper for me to buy a DVD at $19.95 than go to the movies. And that night I didn’t go to the movies. You can carry this to an extreme of, say if you want to conquer a people, isolate the individuals. It probably won’t be that bad, but isolation may be something to consider as we go deeper into our pockets for necessities.