If you chose to not participate in the use of mass communications devices, which these days also means a computer with an internet connection or ability to connect to the internet, then you are opting out of mass communications, and all that this action implies.

As an Emergency Management Coordinator, I take into account the facts about reaching a mass audience as quickly as possible with timely, accurate information. The facts tell me that 77.3% of the US population has internet connectivity (and penetration my my area is closer to 98%) 93% of the people in the USA have mobile phones, and 24.5% of the American population does not have a landline. This makes internet and mobile phones (texting) not only a viable mass communications medium, it makes it mandatory.

While broadcast media (television, radio) remains for the foreseeable future a viable and important communications tool, the reality is that information moves faster and wider via Texts and Twitter than it does via News Radio. Yes, most people don't use Twitter, and many people still think of it as a vacuous, self-serving platform for narcissistic babbling, but the reality is that it - and other mass texting tools such as Group.me are turning into vitally important tools in emergency planning. The LAFD and the American Red Cross know and use the power of these tools. The governments of Egypt and Iran know this and fear it.

In an increasingly online world, the concept of creating an "outernet" that allows for the use of semi-autonomous networks for replicating the functionality and protocols of key communications tools of the internet makes good sense.

I think that the rough winter of 2011 and the political upheaval in the Middle East have many people thinking seriously about building a more decentralized and robust alternative system of peer to peer and point to point communications based on Internet protocols and without the vulnerability of power failures, bandwidth caps or politically motivated kill switches.

It would be utterly foolish to not plan now for a very near future where the whole idea of "broadcast media" - for example, Weather Radios - is antiquated and even obsolete, having been replaced by "multicast data streams" picked up by devices that today we call smart phones, but in 5 years (or less) will be our "communicators" in every sense of the word.

Already I'm seeing dockable "phones" from Motorola - you carry it around and it's a smart phone, you park it in a dock and it's a laptop - and couple this with the rising tide of digital broadcast services and LTE data networks, it's not hard to see 50% or more market penetration for multipurpose internet based multimedia communications devices.

In this scenario, which is hardly unrealistic, it's smart to be planning out how you'd keep these devices connected and accessing useful information in localized or regionalized emergencies.