In one of Isaac Asimov's many novels "The Naked Sun", he describes a planet known as Solaria. This planet was settled by those that favored robotic assistance in most of lives ventures as opposed to the anti-robot movement (both schools of thought originate from earth, the original world of course). While these two groups clashed greatly when they're first created, they now slightly resembled each other with the non-robotisists using robots sparingly and the robot lovers, well, really loving to use their robots. On the planet of Solaria, robotic use as well as technology had evolved so much that people were living well past our present life expectancies and into their hundreds. This planet sounds awesome until you are told that real life human interaction was not only rare it was thought of as dirty and shameful. People would not even think of talking to each other face to face, much less going to each others compounds (which were spaced out far enough that you could roam your property for hours and not see another human being). Of course this lack of human interaction had it's obvious downsides and eventually but slowly began to crumble by the end of the story (which involved a murder of a scientist which no one could figure out because no human would ever get that close and robots were supposedly governed by three laws that kept them from committing such acts).
Solaria was an extreme case painted by the author for fictional purposes, but people have begun to see our advancements in technology (namely our high speed wireless connections and many devices that allow us to be reached and sent information everywhere) as the beginning of a lifestyle that loosely resembles Solaria. Critics foresee a time in the near future where this constant connectivity will intrude our personal lives so much that there will cease to be a personal life. Since we are always "on" we will be constantly expected to be available for anything that demands our attention. To me and for long as I can remember this has been one of the dumbest and short sighted views about technology that I have ever heard of. Finally after years and years of articles spelling the doom and gloom of a future where constant communication is a norm, here is an article that shows the other side of the constant connectivity coin, the bright future that always on really could be.
The article is fairly short so I won't quote from it, but the author brings up a good point which most people who see the future of wireless as bad rarely bring up. It's called the OFF switch or button or whatever you want it to be. People have told me the reason for not getting a cell phone is that they don't want to be able to be reached anywhere and everywhere, that they want some alone time. When I suggest in every conversation like this that I have that you don't always have to pick up the phone, or you can turn it off they seem to have been hit with some brick wall like argument that they can't possibly beat. "Why didn't they think of this themselves" I always ask myself. Sometimes they respond with "Yeah, but then I feel like I missed something" or "yeah but I feel like I have to pick it up". The key phrase here is "I feel..." Which to me seems like a personal problem. If you feel as though you have missed something when you don't answer your phone why would you just avoid a cell phone altogether which will no doubt lead to you missing countless things? And if you feel as though you need to pick it up that is a personal neurosis that needs to be handled in a private matter. Don't blame the tech for your own hang ups.
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