Urbanites and suburbanites might have very different definitions of a “neighborhood,” but both daydream about the gladed landscapes and bucolic beauty of a truly rural setting.

Who wouldn’t like to “get away from it all” for a while?

Who wouldn’t want to experience a refreshing dose of peace and quiet?

Who wouldn’t prefer a two lane gravel road instead of an eight lane “freeway” parking lot?

Who wouldn’t trade fields of green for acres of asphalt?

The only problem with this rural respite is that we really cannot ever “get away from it all” anymore. We always “take it with us.” In our smart phones. On our lap tops. With our tablets. We are constantly connected to it “all” – all the time – regardless of our actual geographic location.

Except.

Except in those isolated patches of the planet where getting connected to the internet is like watching paint dry – an agonizing sit-and-wait period that is limited by the power of whatever broadband is available in that area. The endlessly blinking cursor on pc’s, or the ceaselessly “spinning wheel of death” on Macs, advertises that we aren’t connected to anything or anyone “yet” and might not be ever.

If it takes longer than five seconds to connect, to get online or get access to any website, we go into meltdown mode.

Repeating commands.

Refreshing.

Re-entering.

Re-booting.

If there is any yet undeclared “endangered species,” it would have to be the human attention span. We need online and we need it right now. We pay big bucks in order to slice away seconds. Super satellite hook-ups or muscle-bound bandwidths are the new gold standard. We cannot sit and wait while information is downloaded. We cannot live with a weak or wavering signal. We crave full power and instant access to the online world all the time-wherever we are.