Can't help but agree with you here. I think tweeting (whether about the conference or not), surfing the web, reading/responding to email, etc. during a talk are

Can't help but agree with you here. I think tweeting (whether about the conference or not), surfing the web, reading/responding to email, etc. during a talk are symptomatic of the same inability to maintain focus and to think deeply when that's not PRECISELY what we want to be experiencing in a given moment. Because of the fleetingness of the things we do online, even if the particulars are boring and mind-numbing (e.g., reading fifteen Cracked Top 10 articles in a row, or fruitlessly tweeting to tech celebrities in hope of a reply), we don't notice because the experience in general gives us the impression of fulfillment by virtue of its variety alone.