Constant techno communication brings lack of focus and loss of privacy

Kansas City Star: Constant techno communication brings lack of focus and loss of privacy

… Cyber-savvy experts view it as far more than that. It’s an example of how technology — and especially the growth in text messaging and live video chatting — is allowing people to keep in such constant communication that it has begun to radically change the sense of what it means for people to feel together, or alone, or apart.

Researchers even have names for it: “connected presence” or “persistent presence” — the feeling, through technology, that you are with someone when you are not.

“It’s having this sense, this ambient awareness, of your friends or family,” said Mary Madden, senior research specialist with the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. “Even if you’re not communicating or interacting, they have a sense of you being there and being OK, just by you being logged on.”

But the boom in constant connections also is raising significant concerns, from fostering poor focus and lack of independence to the real difficulty of cutting ties in an era of Facebook “friend” connections.

More privacy questions are sure to arise with the evolution of new phone applications. Foursquare or Gowalla now tell people where you are, using Global Positioning System satellites.

Some worry, too, about stalking, domestic violence and being connected to people who are truly unwanted.

“We are seeing persistent texting,” said Parry Aftab, a lawyer and executive director of WiredSafety.org, an Internet safety organization. “People wanting to know where you are at every hour of the day, who you are with. When does it go from, ‘I care about you,’ to ‘I’m a stalker, I’m a punching bag?’ There’s a thin line from what’s reasonable and what’s manic.” …