I was out to dinner a few nights ago and from time to time my dinner guest felt the need to check-in on his blackberry and make sure his world was not falling apart. He apologized and apologized for checking and asked if I wanted him to just turn it off. Truth be told I didn’t. I wanted to check my mail and text messages just as badly. So, about every 15 to 30 minutes we took a break from being in the here and now with each other to check the wired-self.

A great article on Forbes.com discuses this change in society. Professor Sherry Turkle at MIT points out:

Contemporary professional life is rich in examples of people ignoring those they are meeting with to give priority to online others whom they consider a more relevant audience. Students do e-mail during classes; faculty members do e-mail during meetings; parents do e-mail while talking with their children; people do e-mail as they walk down the street, drive cars or have dinner with their families. Indeed, people talk on the phone, hold a face-to-face meeting and do their e-mail at the same time. Once done surreptitiously, the habit of self-splitting in different worlds is becoming normalized. Your dinner partner looks down with a quick glance and you know he is checking his BlackBerry.

It’s true; many of us have become addicted to our wired-selves and whether we want to or not, have become so engrossed in the connectivity we have forgotten what its like to disconnect. Turkle goes on to say:

BlackBerry users describe that sense of encroachment of the device on their time. One says, “I don’t have enough time alone with my mind”; another, “I artificially make time to think.” Such formulations depend on an “I” separate from the technology, a self that can put the technology aside so as to function apart from its demands. But it’s in conflict with a growing reality of lives lived in the presence of screens, whether on a laptop, palmtop, cell phone or BlackBerry. We are learning to see ourselves as cyborgs, at one with our devices. To put it most starkly: To make more time means turning off our devices, disengaging from the always-on culture. But this is not a simple proposition, since our devices have become more closely coupled to our sense of our bodies and increasingly feel like extensions of our minds.

I highly suggest you read her entire article. The unexpected changes in society that have come about because of our always-on devices is a topic worth exploring the implications of.  Often you find our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses, technological advances are no exception.