One thing is certain: the riddle of mind, long a topic for philosophers, has taken on new urgency. Under pressure from the computer, the question of mind in relation to machine is becoming a central cultural preoccupation. It is becoming for us what sex was to the Victorians--threat and obsession, taboo and fascination.

It is painful to watch children trying to show off for parents who are engrossed in their cell phones. Children are nostalgic for the 'good old days' when parents used to read to them without the cell phone by their side or watch football games or Disney movies without having the BlackBerry handy.

These days, insecure in our relationships and anxious about intimacy, we look to technology for ways to be in relationships and protect ourselves from them at the same time.

I love sharing photographs and websites, I'm for all of these things. I'm for Facebook. But to say that this is sociability? We begin to define things in terms of what technology enables and technology allows.

I don't tell a story unless I have a very deep bench. If you tell an idiosyncratic story, there's no resonance. People read it and say, "I don't see anyone like that." So I tell a story only when I have many stories behind it.

Does virtual intimacy degrade our experience of the other kind and, indeed, of all encounters, of any kind?

When the social network doesn't find it convenient to have privacy, we say, "Okay, social network, you don't want privacy, maybe we won't have it either." But we did this without having the conversation.