We... heal ourselves by giving others what we most need.

Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body -- not too little, not too much, just right.

We... heal ourselves by giving others what we most need.

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.

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.

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

We are not as strong as technology's pull.