This loss of interest in the people and society around us has largely been seen as endemic of the Industrial Revolution. As the verses that comprise this novel were written when the Industrial Reovlution was still only a few generations old, Pushkin can be seen as remarkably observant and perhaps even prescient in his assessment of the bored young heir. There is a great irony to Onegin's boredom -- and our own -- in a world of surplus such as that created (for many in society) by the advent of industry. Onegin clearly does not want for stimulation of the senses; he goes to lavish balls and other events of high society in St. Petersburg, and can afford any other pleasures he might want. This affordability, however, is precisely what leads to his boredom and frustration. Industrial societies have lost the connection to pleasures that working directly for them imbues them with.

For Onegin, this also holds true when he moves to the more peaceful country. There is no small amount of irony in the narrator's tone when he observes of Eugene Onegin that, "For two full days he was enchanted / By lonely fields and burbling brook [...] But by the third he couldn't stick it" (Pushkin 28). He has become so inundated with stimulation that even new features -- more peaceful, natural, and yet pervasive forms...

Turning his back on society and on nature, Onegin primarily turns within himself throughout much of the novel, and in many ways society is still mirroring Onegin's loss of any sort of external connection. Though Pushkin could not have predicted the rise of the computer and video games, of course, these can be seen as progenitors of further disconnection, and possibly partially inspired by the already disconnected attitudes and mentalities of many individuals in our society. Realty has ceased to be exciting because its outcomes are, for the most part, certain, and often disappointing.
Many individuals have turned within themselves, shutting themselves off from the outside world, out of a sense of boredom with life's predictable routine. Onegin feels this sharply and clearly in the novel, and though the centuries that have passed since Eugene Onegin was written might have obscured this sense of loss to some degree, it is still a definite issue at work in modern society. Industrialization and its attendant social changes have created greater luxury for many, but they have also shifted the focus of many lives, limiting rather than enlarging possibilities. Onegin eventually becomes a victi of hs own detachment, which serves as a warning to us all.