Poor folk love their cellphones

(This is based on a article in the New York Times titled, Let Them Eat Tweets.)

“Poor folk love their cellphones!” said Bruce Sterling, the cyberpunk writer, at the South by Southwest tech conference in Austin. His message was that the clearest symbol of poverty is dependence on “connections” like the Internet, Skype and texting.

Guilty as charged. I do love my iPhone. I do love being connected. I feel productive. However, I am learning to disconnect more and more as I realize my children are growing up. I spent the majority of Saturday with my 4 year old daughter and 3 year old son. We first went to Honey Dip Donuts where I talked my son into two donut holes. My daughter did not fall for that one. She said we could split a donut. However, by the time I finished checking out with my son, my daughter had eaten 75% of the donut we were suppose to share. She is her mother's daughter.

My favorite part was on the walk home. We took our time. I had no where to be. They looked for clues that led to buried treasure. That walk helps me better understand the following from the article:

"Anyone with a strong soul or a fat wallet turns his ringer off for good and cultivates private gardens that keep the hectic Web far away. The man of leisure, Sterling suggested, savors solitude, or intimacy with friends, presumably surrounded by books and film and paintings and wine and vinyl — original things that stay where they are and cannot be copied and corrupted and shot around the globe with a few clicks of a keyboard."

(Thanks to Scott and Anne Bean for the picture of Honey Dip Donuts.)