Then there is the generational divide - my mom has never used a computer let alone a microwave. She doesn't own a cell phone. She is among the happiest people I know, having led a most fulfilling life. She still sends letters.

I am 51. I started computing on high school on a time share computer wired to a local college. My first programs were on punch cards. I spent college tapping out papers on a typewriter and my thesis was written in Word 1.0 on my Dad's brand new IBM PC. My first email was on a vi editor. If some of this is Greek to you, there is probably the generational divide between you and me. Today I am fairly typically outfitted with all the trappings of technology and communications. But increasingly it makes me uncomfortable and asks me to make personal concessions I won't make.

Personally I can take or leave all the technology at this point. I have to question whether every advance is a good thing for us all. My goal now is to retire early and disconnect the tech from my personal life. Keep the cell and sat phone and ham radio for my Red Cross. Keep a pc humming in the background somewhere for government agencies and vendors who don't accept letters or personal visits to pay them. Expect folks to call, visit, or write me letters to draw my attention. Its not anonymity alone that I seek, but a reasonable amount of control over what people know about me. I am not a maniac about my personal privacy but too many are ceding that concept in return for very minor personal gains. Once its gone, the status quo has changed, and an important tenet of American society may come into question and be lost. I prefer to live out the rest of my life without all the alluring technology, doing things with people, not to them.