“I wrote a story called ‘The Intensive Care Unit’ about a world where people never meet. They simply make contact via TV. Marriage is conducted hundreds of miles apart. And in my story I visualise a man who actually decides to meet his wife and children in the flesh. Of course, it’s a disaster. They just cannot bear the sensory overload. On a mere neurological level, they can’t bear to be together - rather in the way that we can’t bear to be too close to strangers. So I can believe that, in the future, people won’t be able to bear to be in the same room as others. Or even on the same street.”
— J. G. Ballard, in interview, Extreme Metaphor : Selected Interviews
