The friction free existence....

Felix Salmon has a provocative post on how smart phones are making our lives more dangerous because it makes us less aware as pedestrians. To that, I have to plead guilty as charged. The productivity cult is really pervasive in our society and we feel that we have to be active or stimulated at all times, lest we miss something (like the bigger picture). Given the cultural imperatives it's easy for everyone to get swept into the do it now mood.

Salmon, talks about how we become less aware and cognizant of our surroundings, that we become less aware of our world. He feels that it's the absorption of ourselves in an alternate world (infospace perhaps) that makes experienced with realspace. I don't think it's just about alternate realities, but the attempts to eliminate friction in our transactions. The question is does the lack of friction actually reduce any energy expenditure, or just hide it.

Putting all our media in the cloud, do we actually save the energy of not having a DVD and shipping it, or do we simply hide and it move the energy cost to the cloud as well at a higher expenditure. Out of sight out of mind.

 Is having our world in our phones, just another way of having our heads in the sand?