Ever been to a meeting where someone carries in a laptop, an iPad, a smartphone and a paper notepad?

It’s like they’re making a statement: “Look at me, I’m locked and loaded with my quadmedia connectivity gear!”

The introduction of tablet size mobile digital devices—iPad®, Nook™, Kindle™, Xoom™, Iconia™ Tab, G-Slate™, etc.—has accelerated what is now a very obvious digital connectivity arms race.

Along with new software apps and Facebook and Twitter social media, the industry has launched new touchscreen operating systems, like Apple iOS and Android Honeycomb, to make the user’s experience of connectivity more friendly—and more seductive.

The new mobile communications technology is cool. But the proliferation of digital platforms has also launched a reassessment of an always-on connectivity culture that—in the words of MIT social science professor Sherry Turkle—is “too busy ‘communicating’ to think, too busy ‘communicating’ to create, too busy ‘communicating’ to really connect with the people we’re with, in the ways that really count.”

Professor Turkle’s latest book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, explores the culture of distraction that “has decreased the time available for us to sit and think uninterrupted.”

She observes that “we ramp up the volume and velocity of communicating. But we start to expect fast answers. And yet in order to get them, we ask each other simpler questions. We start to dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters.”

(For those too ramped up to read, see Turkle on youtube.)

As a sociologist and licensed clinical psychologist, Turkle focuses on how a culture of continual digital connectivity impacts personal and social aspects.

But fallout from the digital communications arms race impacts business, too. In his best seller You Are Not a Gadget, Jaron Lanier, a virtual reality pioneer and partner architect at Microsoft Research, examines how Web 2.0 “hive” technology affects business, economics and advertising.

What is noteworthy is that Lanier and Turkle aren’t anti-technology cranks. They are among a surprising number of high-tech insiders concerned about the negative consequences of the digital communications arms race—and how it can be directed in a more positive direction.

In upcoming blogs, we’ll examine those negatives and positives to understand the impact of the digital communications arms race on B2B digital marketing.