Connected with the World yet Out of Touch with our Immediate Surroundings

Ben Stein starts his Everybody's Business Column of August 24 (NYT) Connected, Yes, But Hermetically Sealed by quoting Jean-Jacques Rousseau "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains"...

The chains in question are not physical ones but rather of the electronic kind.

We can share our meaningful and meaningless moments with friends and strangers alike.
We keep working after hours by having access to our e-mail and the web on the go 'thanks' to our Blackberries and I Phones.

Can't we just turn our devices off for an hour while having dinner and show some social skills?

Does being opened to the world 24/7 and flooded with a constant stream of news bits makes us miss on what's most important, things and people in our immediate surroundings?