"You might argue that an iPhone without connectivity is, well, an iPod, but its not. To state the (obviously overlooked) obvious - it is a phone without connectivity and that over time the ease and evolving practice of disconnecting fundamentally changes our assumptions of what we can expect from a phone, which in turn alters our expectations about the connectivity of other people." Jan Chipchase on pause buttons and understandings of what "social" means. Excellent.

Exhaust data is, I think, a clear case of "phatic communication." This is communication with little hard, informational content, but lots of emotional and social content. [It] doesn't get much said, but it has social effects so powerful, it gets lots done

"the strength of social contact between people cannot be measured by frequency or intensity; a better measure is the number of communication channels used by people" - I like Chris' ideas, but need to think a bit harder on them.