When "driving a car" means turning a key and then pointing it in the right direction, it's no surprise the experience has lost its luster. If your life is about constantly being online, then I see the article's point—public transit is your best option. If you enjoy driving, then get a car that's fun to drive.
Unfortunately the appeal of manuals is lost on most Americans.
I love driving a good sports car with a manual transmission. I'm the minority, not you.
If I end up having kids, they won't have their own cars until they are proficient with a stick.
Dual-clutch automatic for me.
I took my car to Grease Monkey to get the oil changed and I had to drive it into and out of the bay, because no worker there knew how to drive a stick.
It also very much saddens me that when it's time to get a new car, I may be forced to not get a stick because so many models simply don't come in a manual now.
The other very cheap and very fast option is a used street bike, since all of those have manuals.
Supposedly, automatics incur a few percent more gas usage. And gas is really expensive here.
A stick is also only more fuel efficient if you're always in the right gear. It's much more natural to drive aggressively when driving a stick, so I suspect that many drivers negate any fuel efficiency savings.
An interesting analogy that I thought of at the time was manual memory management. Stalling the car felt an awful lot like throwing a seg fault. I haven't followed the analogy very far so it might break down, but it's certainly true that in the right hands (race car drivers, kernel programmers?), C and stick shifts can be wielded with devastating effect.
I never actually finished learning to drive though, as I live in NYC now, so YMMV (literally).
It is something you pick up after a couple of hours of driving and becomes second nature.
That said, I would prefer automatic, especially in traffic jams. Unfortunately it is not always an option when driving a company car.
To me, a stick shift doesn't give a feeling of control. It gives a feeling of subservience. I have to do more busy work to accomplish the same tasks. I must appease the car gods by choosing the appropriate gears and releasing the clutch properly, lest they stall me.
As an analogy, I would not code in assembly unless I needed its performance or flexibility. But some people, such as one of the hosts of 'Security Now!', like to do everything in assembly.
I have my fingers crossed for the new Subaru model. We're starting to run out of options.