>> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-death-of-the-cyberflaneur.html :
>>
>>> the whole point of the flâneur’s wanderings is that he does not know
>>> what he cares about. As the German writer Franz Hessel, an occasional
>>> collaborator with Walter Benjamin, put it, “in order to engage in
>>> flânerie, one must not have anything too definite in mind.”
>
> That's very nice, but 1) I could imagine wanting to look up that
> quote while in a bar, and using my iPhone to do so, and 2) sometimes you have
> to do things, definitely in mind. Like get to a meeting or a party.
>
> DOug
True enough. Also, when there's a very good chance that the most annoying people you know are also the most compulsive tweeters, it makes them easy to surveil in order to avoid running into them accidentally. The flip side is that status updates, texting and cellphones make it virtually impossible to have the pleasure of accidentally running into a close friend when you both arrive unescorted to the Thalia Soho to see Zelig.
Furthermore, without access to the internet, I'm sure I would not have encountered the word "flaneur," ever, and my knowledge of Walter Benjamin would be limited to an awareness of exactly 1 of his most anthologized essays. As it is, I've read two bios, watched one documentary, possess a doorstopper copy of the Arcades Project, and belong to a mailing list to which a translator of his historical theses also belongs. I'm not quite sure what to make of this gradual imposition of a Benjamin-craving subjectivity upon a brain more suited to watching baseball, lifting weights and drinking beer.
And, as Wojtek says, Virgin Mobile, which is owned by Sprint, has the best deals on smartphones.