I just spent the morning down at the local cafe, outside of the range of wireless internet. Got a decent amount of work done on the browser for the scholium system, a solid new beginning anyway. Given that I like to talk a lot (which no doubt other wiki users have noticed) I sometimes find it very helpful to be offline when I'm actually working. Furthermore, since I'm naturally a bit of an extrovert (albeit in a weird way), if I have an internet connection, I'm rather likely to spend most of my time blabbing or otherwise conversing. I wonder what will become of me when the whole city is on one wireless network! I may have to move (gulp) or figure some sort of other way to limit my access. The fact of the matter is that I tend to have rather bad self-control, so the idea of turning off my wireless card, though simple enough to suggest, is actually sort of hard for me to do. I sometimes need to find somewhat "harder limitations".
One nice thing about the scholium system is that it works with a very low online component: one needs only a few minutes a day to sync up. This gives users the possibility of steering away from the "hit mentality" and towards a more laid back form of interaction. Remember "the medium is the message"?
Another (almost completely different) issue in the comparison of online versus offline life is that of local (analog) resources. Face-to-face conversations are more data-rich than online conversations. By saying this, I don't mean to disparage either type of communication, mind you. For face to face conversations, you have to remember to shower and so on. Online conversations give you a more "global" scope - but the semi-holographic nature of information means that you can sometimes find very "global" things stored locally, too. The difference between physical hacking and computer hacking is palpable, even though there are some similarities too. The best black hat hackers talk extensively about the "human factor", i.e., combining online and offline activities.
It is interesting to think about what sort of balance between these sorts of interactions works "best" - which is of course a judgement that would be relative to the individual, the work, and presumably the other agents involved in the interaction.
--jcorneli