I embrace my addiction to being connected. I’m sure it’s a pathology fully explainable by some sort of pattern in my upbringing, maybe some chthonic vestigial compulsion stemming from trauma in my teen years, but I’m not going to worry about it. My compulsion to stay connected with the Cloud, via text, email, voice, blog, forum or whatever, enhances my ability to advise and consult and to stay informed.

But I had a truly transformative moment a few weekends ago in San Francisco. While exploring the smaller vineyards in the Stags Leap growing region of Napa Valley (check out the wonderful story behind Robinson Family Vineyards), I decided to make a quick email check from my cellphone. While I was online, I switched over to Facebook mobile, to catch the latest updates from my friends.

When I noticed my friend, colleague, and video game critical theory pioneer David Thomas was in the city for the Game Developer’s Conference, I dropped him a text, letting him know I’d be in North Beach that night. He responded that he might meet us out at some point.

We kept in touch via SMS until he swung by Enrico’s later that evening. David couldn’t help making fun of my endless tweets* throughout the trip, usually about food, which he was able to read on Facebook.

Mostly out of spite, I sent out a Twitter update that second about hanging with David and the crowd.

The William Gibson moment came a mere 30 seconds later, when I received an alert, via text message, that someone had sent me email, via Facebook, online. The message came from Tokyo (I was able to read it on my phone via Facebook mobile), where David’s girlfriend had been staying for several weeks:

“You are hanging out with my boyfriend. Kiss him for me, will ya?”

Suddenly, my stupid little Twitter updates had global implications. In William Gibson’s books, the characters, along with everyone else on earth, are interconnected through technology; small ripples in one part of the world make waves everywhere else, in ways nobody can really predict. I was stunned by the way our experiences had overlapped and turned in on each other, using so many different modes of communication in such a very short amount of time.

I declined the kiss, but definitely felt embraced by the Cloud. No wonder I'm addicted.

*Twitter is a mobile blogging service that allows users to send updates online, via text messaging, or via instant messaging. It also integrates seamlessly with Facebook.