Stop treating human beings like non-player characters.

Technology has made it stupidly easy to avoid real human interaction. Our eyes are glued to our phones, barely noticing the people around us. Even in real-world interactions, we talk over the top of our screens — anything to avoid face-to-face conversations. We treat cashiers, servers, customer reps and even people we care about like NPCs from some video game–two-dimensional extras put here just…