I sat at a brunch table the other morning with Gary Vaynerchuk, an internet A-lister from Wine Library TV, discussing how many interesting people we'd both met at the SXSW interactive media conference. He mentioned how inspiring it is that the web 2.0 revolution was breaking down boundaries.

Is the saturation of available modes to communicate digitally really breaking down boundaries?
I looked around the table and, at that moment, half of our large party was on their iPhones (a behavior I've dubbed iRude). When I pointed out my observation, Gary explained that the only reason our brunch party was so large (about 50 ppl.) was because he Twittered everyone there about where and when to meet up.

As I just learned, Twitter.com is a social networking/text messaging forum, where you mass text message your network on a response optional basis. I saw Evan Williams Co-Founder of Twitter.com, as part of panel discussion yesterday. He defined it as a way of alerting your network to exactly what you are doing. A form of a highlighted play-by-play where "now" is the implied framework.

"Now" strikes me as an ironic adjective. I believe instead that the web world has come to imply something that more resembles 'one hour from now.'

It seems to me that fame has gravitated from a glorification of the past and the recent, to the future. This is tricky because the future is only an assumption. But when we venerate the next big thing and occupy ourselves with the race to keep up, we risk missing out on experiences right in front of us.

Marjorie Miller, my college Buddhist philosophy professor, told us "The man who reads while he eats enjoys neither." In a modern day context, where reading is working it's way onto the endangered species list, I postulate that: The person who Twitters while they make friends connects with neither.

The accessibility of information via the internet affords the Web 2.0 generation a certain level of hubris. In the grand scheme of things, it keeps our eyes affixed on the future and possibilities to come. However, it also gives us an unwarranted sense of entitlement, at the expense of social etiquette. If I can't get whatever information I want instantly online or on my phone, I become enraged. There is a fine line between using the internet and its various social networking possibilities as a form of engaging or as a form of escape and avoidance.