Questioning "March Toward Total Screenlife"

Scott Heiferman of MeetUp.com offers interesting quotes on his blog... several of which seem apropos to the topic of this blog and in line with our experience of hosting Front Porch Forum in Chittenden County...

Andrew Mason: "Inaction stems from a pragmatic judgment that participating doesn’t matter. Not apathy."

So how can we use our new and pending connectedness in Vermont to make participation matter to Vermonters?

Daniel Goleman: "While there are certainly arguments for staying connected to those we care about while we are at a distance, there is always a trade-off with the distractedness this wisp of an information stream induces, drawing our attention from people in the here and now."

So all that Facebooking with distant old pals means there's less of me available for my local community? Go figure.

Jeff Pulver: "twitter... is the platform I go to when I am in a mood to communicate with others... "

...it's shocking that this piece was written without even a nod to the absurdity & risk of our March Toward Total Screenlife. Real-time communication is free & easy, so why have "real-enough time communication"? When you want to say 'good morning' or are in a mood to communicate with others, why not arrange your life so it's F2F (eg. a workplace, people you live with, a breakfast club, ?)? Are the people within X miles not good enough? As I quoted the other day, "The physical world is very high bandwidth."