This is the question I asked myself after reading Andrew Keen‘s post entitled “The message is the master” at The Great Seduction.  And if you ask my wife or some family members, you would get an answer of an emphatic ‘yes’.  It is more the norm lately where I hear some variant of “wow, you are always online” or “is that computer attached to your hands?”  So maybe there is something to be said for being too connected.

It used to be that you had to be conscious of maintaining a good work/life balance.  Now, more often it seems like there is a shift to online/life balance.  And this becomes exceedingly difficult as more aspects of life and managing one’s life move to the online medium.  Not necessarily Second Life online life but other variants like email, FreeCycle, craigslist, eBay, networking sites, news, video, the list goes on and on.

And it becomes even more pervasive with the continuing emergence of mobility.  Take a look at Fred Wilson‘s post, Life Without My Laptop where he feels he can do everything now including blogging directly from his blackberry.  And after all, it is a point within itself for the simple fact that I’m writing this post on the train as I head into NYC for FAST‘s Future of Media meeting and as my Treo buzzes incessantly as new email hits my inbox.

Andrew links to a fantastic Forbes article wittily entitled Can You Hear Me Now? which discusses quite well how connected we all are now and the effects such devices and non-stop connectivity has on us.  Perhaps we should think twice about the emergence of offline/online applications as I discussed in a previous post about Adobe Apollo.  Should we create yet another new place to be “almost online” or “almost connected”?

To close, as more of life (and life management) moves online, we should always remain conscious of the simple fact that for all the great things emerging on the web, just as much great life and experiences remain just as they did before the coming of the web.  Baseball, reading, simply sitting outside in the sun and relaxing are just a few.  Perhaps that is why I recently purchased the Belkin N1 Wireless router with such fantastic range that I can use the computer in the backyard!