Illustration: Barry Blitt"Can't you eat lunch like a normal person?" my wife asked as I snapped a photo of my Steamer sub with my phone.
"I just need to check in and let everyone know where I am," I said. I attached the picture to a text message and e-mailed it to my Groovr.com home page. My phone buzzed with a reply. "Hey look," I said. "Crystal's at her mom's house in Irvine, and Earle is in Cannes."
"I am starting to worry about you," she said, munching a chip.
She had a point. I had become addicted to mobile social networks. I had to tell the world what I was doing and where I was doing it, 24/7--and thanks to a new breed of Web sites like Twitter, Groovr, and Loopt, I could, easily.
But I wasn't merely acting like a self-obsessed, tattooed twentysomething, I was looking at the future of communications. Before long, the cell phone will be the device many of us use to locate friends, get restaurant or music recommendations, navigate new cities, and do a whole lot more.
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