The loss of silence in the culture of Facebook and Twitter

Nietzsche said that God is dead. Well, I say that silence is dead. In this twitteredup, facebooked culture I can't even stop at a stop light without grabbing my cell for a quick status update.

Wasn't that supposed to be my quiet time?

And even if I can't immediately punch a tweet on my cell (like during the five daily minutes that cascading water prevents the use of electronics), I find my thoughts forcibly coalescing to 120 pithy characters or less.

With these new temptations, everyone has become a journalist with a following. Now that I have an audience, it would be criminal not to grace them with my musings. But there is a cost...