I'll preface my comment here by reminding you that I live in Oaxaca and have somewhat purposely avoided the constant demand for attention our devices seem to have on us. While I am online 8 hours a day, maybe more, I do not use a cell phone here. I was begged and cajoled by associates into having one in the States to make it easier for them to reach me at any time. Often it seems its primary utility is that they can wait to choose the place to meet until the very last minute. Certainly there is also a convenience there that works in US culture.

Twitter, from the outside looking in, seems like the ultimate distraction tool- incessant chatting about trivial stuff. Even if you are using it during "down time" in a bus or waiting for your coffee, it distracts you from the present. I've found it can be highly rewarding to pay attention to the immediate physical environment, particularly the people who happen to be sitting next to me.

More personal context: in general, when I am in the United States it is commonplace to be distracted by an incoming cell phone call to the person I am with. We have to completely have put the next utterance on pause until they choose to return to the conversation. To me the greatest gift you can give someone is your attention. Certainly I am not capable of doing this all the time, but I am very conscious of my actions in this regard. I guess that's what I am saying here, it seems important to me to be truly mindful of the value of someone's physical presence.

btw bruce sterling has attempted to label the "always on, always connected, location aware" future as hyper-local in the current issue of wired.

Sure seems like we will miss a lot of the present if this is our future.

paz
mark
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