Here's a phrase many of you will remember, probably from the late 1990s: "Yeah, I'd get a cell phone, but I don't want to be on, like, an electronic leash, you know?" People had land lines, pagers, car phones — the pocketable mobile phone was still a luxury and, to some, an unwanted responsibility. Over the next 10 years or so, the mobile phone gradually reached such high levels of market penetration that it's quite difficult to find anybody without one. It is simply too practical and affordable to refrain from at this point. However, in the last few years, as smartphones and texting have become the default mode of communication for many people, the tone has changed again; the electronic leash is returning. Why is this? It's actually pretty simple: once a tool reaches a certain level of integration with the social and communication norms of a person, it receives the same level of cognitive consideration as, say, speech. Do you wonder whether you should end a text message with an exclamation mark, a period, or nothing at all? This is because texting and email are approaching the same level of integration with our daily lives as the speech and gestures we've been using for millennia.