Leer a Proust en la era de la banda ancha

Benjamin Kunkel en un texto realizado a partir de libros sobre la Internet y nuevas tecnologías:

I can't claim that my life is any richer since I got a high-speed internet connection. For one thing, I no longer send or receive letters. And I wonder whether I made my way through Proust over a few winter months a number of years ago in part because those were still the days of dial-up; I went online once a day for maybe half an hour to read and send emails, and that was that. Even now, I guard my solitude jealously enough that I have never owned a mobile phone—a fact that may end up ensuring me more solitude than I like. When I am forced to admit to a fresh acquaintance that I have no mobile number to offer, suspicion of eccentricity or poverty is the most generous response I receive; sometimes I get a look of frank alarm. But it seems I would rather raise a few eyebrows, curse the occasional payphone, and miss out on some parties than to spoil my necessary concentration and even boredom with phone calls I know I couldn't resist fielding or placing.

El texto completo, que inicia con un recuerdo sobre un pasaje de Proust en torno al teléfono, puede consultarse aquí. Hoy en Conversational Reading discuten el texto (acá). Pero, como es de esperarse, no he podido leerlo porque no tengo tiempo. Extrañamente: a pesar de que no he terminado de leer ninguno de los dos textos, ya me tienen aquí, escribiendo esto. ¿Por qué? Kunkel ofrece respuestas:

Critiques, as opposed to mere descriptions, of internet culture emphasize the informality or (more judgmentally) the vulgarity of our promiscuous messages. These communications, in their ease, inexpensiveness, and abundance, suffer less pressure than before to be or seem important, meaningful, or definitive—in other words, to last in our minds. In their clamorous competition with one another, they more often strive to be the first noticed.