WILKES-BARRE — Sometimes I think we know way too much way too soon.

We all carry around these mini-computers called cell phones and we have instant access to everything. We know all that we need to know or want to know simply by clicking a few keys on our mobile devices.

These especially come in handy when trying to determine if you’ve won or lost in your Fantasy Football league. You can access every game and in a matter of seconds, you know who scored, who ran for 100 yards, who passed for 300-plus yards.

This is what has become important to us. Not that Pope Francis was in the U.S. delivering meaningful speech after speech, filled with inspirational messages that we all need to hear and adhere to. Noooooo. We would rather use this technology to find out if Travis Kelce caught a touchdown pass, or if Tom Brady threw more deflated footballs for TDs.

This dumbing down of America has been accelerated by the advancements in technology. That seems a bit ironic. We now have far more capabilities to learn through the use of these things, yet we choose to access You Tube videos of dumbasses doing dumb-ass things, rather than finding out why it’s taking our state government so long to pass a budget.

We don’t even use the damn cell phones to talk anymore. We prefer to text. We gather with friends for meals or drinks and we sit there and we text each other — even if we are sitting just feet from one another.

Technology is stripping us of our ability to socialize. We are more intimate with our iPhones than we are with each other. And in the process, we are becoming as personable as the protective covers we choose to protect our dearest new friends — those mobile devices.

That’s why I find pleasure in two of the Fantasy Football leagues I participate in — The Colonels’ League in Plymouth and the Neighborhood Franchise Football League in Kingston.

Every Thursday, the members of The Colonel’s League get together to review the week’s results, make changes and make fun of one another. It’s focused on our fantasy teams, but there is socialization. We actually sometimes do talk about things other than Fantasy Football. We aren’t solving world issues, but we are talking to each other and not via our cell phones.

In the NFFL, we actually do see one another occasionally. Unlike The Colonel’s League, we have a website to manage the league. But using the website does not preclude us from personal interaction like trading insults and discussing Donald Trump or fishing.

The Times Leader newsroom fantasy league is all website. Once our draft was completed, we went our separate ways. We don’t talk about it, we don’t interact, we just manage our teams.

I am convinced the entire reason technology has advanced so fast is that the machines are, indeed, taking over the world by controlling each of us. By removing meaningful socialization from the world, we are becoming obedient servants of technology.

You can see it everywhere. Watch a man in the street interview. Most people can’t tell you who John Boehner is, or was. They can’t name one of the Founding Fathers. They think the Gettysburg Address is where Lincoln spent his summers.

It’s a sad situation. But we do have joy during the time we all have left as functioning human beings.

We can watch that idiot on a skateboard fall off the rim of the Grand Canyon and we can instantly learn how long Dez Bryant will be on the injured list. We can also find out when the Perkins Restaurant in some Chicago suburb is open until.

Priorities, however silly, are still priorities.

But sometime soon, somebody will have to stand up and insist that information — real, important information — is open 24/7.

Reach Bill O’Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.

By Bill O’Boyle

boboyle@timesleader.com