clipped from: www.nytimes.com   
If Only Literature Could Be a Cellphone-Free Zone

Juliet: Fakn death. C U Latr.

Romeo: gud plan.

Conspiring with a distant lover? Try texting. Lost in the woods/wilderness/Ionic Sea? Use GPS. Case of mistaken identity? Facebook!

Technology is rendering obsolete some classic narrative plot devices: missed connections, miscommunications, the inability to reach someone. Such gimmicks don’t pass the smell test when even the most remote destinations have wireless coverage. (It’s Odysseus, can someone look up the way to Ithaca? Use the “no Sirens” route.)

Of what significance is the loss to storytelling if characters from Sherwood Forest to the Gates of Hell can be instantly, if not constantly, connected?

“We want a world where there’s distance between people; that’s where great storytelling comes from,” said Kamran Pasha, a writer and producer on “Kings,”
the NBC drama based on the story of David. He says even the unfolding of the Bible would have been a casualty of connectedness.