I tried to invite some old friends for dinner the other day. Andy immediately answered the phone. Well, he didn't. His answering machine did, and I know he rarely listens to the messages, but I left an invitation anyhow. Bob has a mobile phone, so I sent him an SMS. Charlie has given up on phones altogether, and he stopped reading his spam ridden e-mail, but one can send him messages on Facebook. Duncan thinks Facebook is childish and only scans his LinkedIn messages. Eric is a half professional Twitter writer, and the only way to be sure that he reads a message is through Twitter. Frank once had film director ambitions, and even though he has given up all that, he now handles all his communication on YouTube. George is a researcher at a newspaper, and he spends his day googling. That does not mean he reads his gmail-e-mail, but you can send him Google plus messages. Herbert retired from his job at IBM a few years ago, and he is so happy to have left information technology behind him that he even cancelled his phone subscriptions (both his blackberry, his iPhone and his landline). You now have to write him a paper letter, if you want to reach him.
In the end, I had to have dinner alone. Most of my old pals did not answer, and the ones who did declined. Their refusals were very consistent: "I have nothing in common with those guys any longer", they said.