To be fair, those interactions are really hollow. When your cashier says "How are you?" both sides of the transaction know it's just a courtesy. I would much ra

To be fair, those interactions are really hollow. When your cashier says "How are you?" both sides of the transaction know it's just a courtesy. I would much rather spend my time sending a text to a friend than have an empty conversation with someone I'll never see again and doesn't care. Even if one side made the effort to say something meaningful, what are the odds my cashier has anything interesting or meaningful to me that can be said in the context of a 5 to 30 second interaction? It's not that they don't value human interaction, it's just that they focus those interactions where it matters.