I think it's more a matter that intelligent life-forms that have technology are rare:
There is life out there but it's probably stupid
"EXTRA-TERRESTRIALS will probably never phone Earth in a way we can understand because they are unlikely to have evolved human-like intelligence. Australian National University astronomer Charley Lineweaver said no other organism on Earth had evolved with intelligence matching that of humans, so it was highly improbable an extra-terrestrial lifeform would think like we do or have built technologies like ours.
"If human-like intelligence were so useful, we should see many independent examples of it in biology and we could cite many creatures who had involved on independent continents to inhabit the intelligence niche," Dr Lineweaver said. "But we can't. Human-like intelligence seems to be what its name implies - species specific." Although he was sure there was other life beyond Earth, he doubted there was intelligent life, such as that, pictured, from the film ET."