Yes same here. I really go crazy when technology that takes us further away from each other is presented as some sort of progress. Why don't we look around at how isolated we've become? Is it any wonder that our stupid little factions (right vs left, black vs white, etc) are pulling further and further away from each other when so much effort is being put into limiting our contact with one another?
To be fair, the self checkout are mostly replacing the cashiers in supermarkets that are lowly paid for a very though job, who probably don't know you and who would probably be fired if they "lost" one second saying something nice to you, not the friendly fruit producer from your local market.