In the world of the Internet, having no access is isolating

I am finally hooked up to my own computer after more than three weeks without it. So here goes a catchup on entries.
As an introduction to the subject of social software, I read Wade Roush's overview of Web 2.0 developments, and the article by Steven Levy and Brad Stone. Roush's comment about the coming together of three enabling technologies that make computing coninuous makes sense: cheap, easily available Internet access; proliferation of portable wireless computing devices; the Web as a platform for personal publishing and social software. The vocabulary he presents seems almost invasive: "continuous computing", "always on", an "electronic swirl of commentary and interpretation" that draws "attention away from the here and now". Are we living in another world through our computers, shut off from the real world? Levy and Stone do not feel so. They write "Cyberspace was somewhere else. The Web is where we live". In other words, the world of the computer has, in many ways, become our reality. Roush's blog is interspersed with comments from readers--I guess that means it is a LiveJournal (I read Christy's interesting description)?--and one comment reflects a caution that I feel needs to be examined: "Because we can, should we?" The explosion of Web 2.0 parallels globalization, and , as Levy and Stone write, it harnesses collective intelligence. The collective, collaborative effort can produce so much more than the effort of an individual. In all the rush to publish and share, the emphasis is actually on the here and now, and I feel that sometimes we need to step back and produce quality and not quantity for its own sake. Publish Post