As someone who 1) uses a computer all day and 2) is not a teenager with a featurephone, I've never been much for text messaging. Lots of Americans are, of course, but a recent reporting trip surprised me with how intense the topic of texting has become. Far from being just a widespread hobby, texting has become a real public safety and social concern. It's one thing to know this; it's another to see it in action in so many ways over the course of only a few days.

One sees plenty of odd things on American roadtrips. For instance, while crossing Ohio, I passed roads with names like "Gore Orphanage" and "Fangboner"—either of which would serve up-and-coming death metal bands well. In Michigan, someone named their postal supply store "Goin' Postal!" In Pittsburgh, a billboard said simply, "YOUR WIFE IS HOT." (How did they know?)

But this was the first such trip on which I saw so much talk about texting, probably because the Age of Flight has killed most long-distance car trips. The Pennsylvania Turnpike, for instance, is littered with signs which mean to keep drivers' eyes on the road and not on the BlackBerry. At rest stops, the signs are staked into the ground and affixed to the doors.

In Maryland, the warnings against texting are right on the road signs, and the state government recently toughened up its driver texting ban by extending it to reading texts while at stop lights.

While moderating a panel on 3D printing in a Congressional committee room in Washington, I looked up to see at least a full third of the audience with heads bowed over smartphones, reading or tapping away as the panelists spoke.

That night, at a play in the Folger Shakespeare Library, a staff member asked people to switch off cell phone ring tones—and then went further. She flicked on a flashlight and waved it beneath her face for a moment. "That's what it looks like when you're texting," she told the audience.

Back on the concrete wasteland that is the Illinois Tollway, a "Drive Now. Text later." campaign asked drivers how they would like it if airline pilots and surgeons weren't paying complete attention when they worked. The campaign was designed to educate motorists about a 2010 Illinois law that banned texting and e-mailing while driving on state roads. Motorists who e-mail the Tollway their own "story about the dangers of texting while driving" will get a "FREE window cling" in return.

What hath the cell phone wrought? Plenty of bad behavior, and not just on the road and in the theater. The buzz of a new text message or an e-mail has so conditioned our poor attention spans that they are now almost powerless to resist the little dopamine squirt that comes with new information, a new connection, a message from an old friend.

Tell us your best (or worst) texting story in the comments below.