Technology and time

Defer no time. Delays have dangerous ends.
— Shakespeare

Eating at a fast-food restaurant on Saturday, on our way back home, a woman sat nearby with a young boy. The woman was frantically text-messaging, then she'd put the phone down and stare at it; then she'd pick it back up and go at it again. The boy ate his food silently. I found myself hoping this was the boy's babysitter instead of his mother. Somehow it mattered to me that it wasn't his mother, caught up in "conversation" with someone outside the restaurant.
People say all this technology buys us more time. My question is, Time for what? How do you and I use our time saved by e-mailing and texting and faxing? (Faxing's not new, exactly, but it's still technology.) Is text-messaging, say, a means to an end? Or just an end? If I send a text to someone, do I have in mind to spend more face time with someone else as a result?
My unscientific findings say that the technology, collectively, is an unhealthy escape. An addiction. I get that new things are attractive and cool. But if what results is that a child is ignored while the person in charge of him wears out her thumbs on a phone, well, we gotta rethink our definition of cool. And spending time.
What do you think?