I wanted also to comment on Maggie's observations. Some scholars, in the earlier days of the new media influx that was changing work and teaching habits, remarked that the sheer number of new possibilities (e.g., sources online, new forums of communication, multimedia, et al) could actually make the life of the mind more difficult. There was a feeling of being distracted by these avenues of interest whilst simply attempting to find one source, or check one fact, or do something simple which before may have taken slightly more time, yet remained a clearly defined objective. So the new media, in a trade-off, sped up work yet offerred unprecedented temptations.

The mixture of literary and new iconic/visual modes on the web brought a clamor with it. Soon came complaints of the "data glut," the increasing volume of informational garbage piling up, requiring wading-through. The lesson in this even for seasoned scholars was that discipline and intellectual focus had to be bolstered, even relearned in the new era. Even though one had the power to network globally at any given time (even if all that one needed was a single fact which might even be in one's office books), this did not mean one should do so. The lesson goes for anyone, of course.

I myself am in a short gap in mobile phone service because I am switching carriers; I chose as an experiment to allow myself to go off the grid for a week or two. After just a couple days now, I have to say it is refreshing, that somehow the space around me no matter where I am seems more private, yet, I admit that I feel a kind of panic to think that I might be stranded out there (perhaps while driving), as if lost in a desert. Pay phones? They seem so primitive now!