“The inability to resist checking email or Facebook rather than focus on the person talking to us leads to what the sociologist Erving Goffman, a masterly observer of social interaction, called an “away,” a gesture that tells another person “I’m not interested” in what’s going on here and now.”

“The inability to resist checking email or Facebook rather than focus on the person talking to us leads to what the sociologist Erving Goffman, a masterly observer of social interaction, called an “away,” a gesture that tells another person “I’m not interested” in what’s going on here and now.”

— Daniel Goleman