I’ve had my iPhone 3G for nearly 6 weeks now. I’ve been reflecting on the impact such a capable device may have on human nteractions. This post isn’t about the iPhone so much as it is about portable computers (if you want my thoughts on the iPhone device, I’ve shared some on Angry Kent).

Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It” is one of my favorite books. The story is barely over 100 pages long, yet supposedly took Maclean more than 25 years to write it. It’s a semi-biographical story of two brothers growing up and fly fishing in Depression-era Montana. And it was because the story was about his brother, that it took Maclean so long to write it. He loved his brother dearly and needed every word to be perfect before he felt it was worthy of reflecting his brother’s memory. The language throughout is poetic. I re-read it often, sometimes the whole story and other times just select passages.

One of the lines I often revisit comes at the end of the story. Norman’s younger brother is dead and he is speaking with his father about his brother’s death. His father comments, “It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.”

I was reminded of that passage this morning. In the Sunday New York Times Business section, Ben Stein wrote a wonderful piece in his regular “Everybody’s Business” column. Its titled, “Connected, Yes, But Hermetically Sealed.” In short, after spending much of the summer relaxing in Idaho, he calls bullshit on our inescapable connectivity, writing:

Consider an airplane flight. We are soaring across the country. We listen to music. We read books and newspapers. We sleep and dream. If you are like me, you look at the cloud formations and listen to Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major. Maybe you talk to your neighbors.

You are free to think and to reflect on existence and on your own small role in it. You are free to have long thoughts and memories of high school and college and the first time you met your future spouse.

Then, the airplane lands. Cellphones and P.D.A.’s snap into action. Long rows of lights light up on tiny little screens. These are people we absolutely have to talk to.

Reading this and reflecting on my own habits, I am struck by the power of our communications devices (especially the iPhone) to distract. Once distant friends now seem close, scores, stock prices, news events, wall posts(!), tweets(!) are all now so accessible. Maybe too accessible. So many things which were once so easy to put out of mind are ever present. Our digital lives now follow us everywhere. Our focus slips to everyone but whoever it is who actually beside us.

Before I purchased my iPhone, I carried two devices – a Razr and a Blackberry. This helped. I initially started doing this because I realized that I allowed the Blackberry to create distractions. Spending time with friends on the weekend and one slip of the thumb would be all it took discover an email that probably could have waited until Monday but now was all-consuming and required immediate action! Having the Razr allowed me to avoid this. Take the Razr, leave the Blackberry at home, and if a real emergency comes up, someone will find me. Yet the iPhone seduced me (and the prices of AT&T plans scared me) and it was back to one single device. Oh, Steve Jobs, your iPhone has enraptured me so! What a remarkable POS it is!

But I don’t want the damn thing to take over my life. I don’t want it to pull me away from my more reflective moments, distract me from family & friends, or cause me to twitch while in a meeting. So if you and I happen to be getting together sometime soon, feel free to ask me to turn off the iPhone. It will be good practice for me. I don’t want real life to elude me.