MIKE MANEY

There are those who think the pervasiveness of technology in our lives is a bad thing. There are others — a camp which I freely admit to falling into — who believe that being always-on, always-connected is a good thing.

This really hit home for me today while I was walking through the Moscone Center in San Francisco where the JavaOne conference is being held. The organizers had set up a quasi lounge area, complete with a big screen to watch the conference keynotes, as well as the requisite multi-colored bean bag chairs. Nearly 90% of those sitting and watching the keynotes had their laptops open (Note: a *vast* majority of the laptops at the show were Powerbooks.). Some were catching up on work, some were blogging what they heard in the keynotes, others were surfing Web sites or catching up on personal e-mail.

And since when is producing, learning or communicating such a bad thing?