What's it with people who leave cell phones on all night and are extremely grumpy when they are woken up at 10:50am (or any other time ... eg 3:30am) by a call or a txt message?

There's an interesting article in the Readers Digest this month about technology keeping us connected... permanently. There's an interesting story from the writer that he was up in Nepal, checking out mountains, when he saw a net cafe. He decided to check his emails, then spent a while laughing at forwarded emails before noticing that he was in the most beautiful part of the world, reading stupid emails, and promply left.

I remember sending a txt message at 6:30am once, and getting told off because I shouldn't be sending txt messages that early in the morning.

What is it with our facination that if we do not check our emails, or leave our cellphones on at all times, that the world will suddenly cease?

I realise that I too am a slave to the cellphone and email. Although in the last 6 months or so I've started turning my phone off at night. But I was thinking that all this eagerness with technology, especially communications technology, is not making life easier. In fact, it makes us busier. Being switched on, needing to reply to a txt message within a five minute time frame or else we come across as snobs.... are we not placing unreasonable demands on ourselves?

Sometimes its just good to stop and smell the roses.

And for goodness sake... start by turning your cellphone off at night.