Yeah, and read White Noise by Don DeLillo.

I was sitting here thinking about how many forms of communication are open to the Internet world today, and it made me a little nostalgic for when my friends and I would chatter excitedly about a new website or exchange screen names. Everything was so feverishly novel - just imagine, we can meet people who live on the other side of the world; we can create chat rooms based on interest (especially important for those of us who felt there were few others to whom we could really relate in our own middle school). We can be anonymous and reveal secrets that those inhabiting our offline worlds might not accept about us.
It seems that kids growing up with all of these new generation networking websites - some even those directed at elementary schoolers! - would take all of these forms for granted. Internet living is becoming interweaved into modern living. I mean, I got sucked into the online world pretty quickly as a middle schooler, but at least I had experienced a childhood of running around in the woods for hours building forts, warring with Super Soakers in the summer, playing board games and Truth or Dare at slumber parties, walking to the neighborhood pool with friends... and I read books, piles and piles of books. There's one you never outgrow. I wouldn't be surprised if children in elementary school these days go straight inside the house after getting home, and escape directly into the allure of screen glow.

I mean, look at attention spans. Ooh, meta-thought: Is this post too long for success online?
What works today is that which can be delivered in snippets, preferably portable so technology can follow one's movement anywhere. Blackberrys, iPhones, the Kindle...

I saw a mother talking with an attendant at a Metro station. Her son was bawling hysterically over a handheld video game he had dropped getting off the train, while the two adults tried to console [ha, ha] him.