He can address a joint session of Congress, as Obama will on Tuesday night, and every paragraph, if not every sentence, will be dissected in real time by people serving as a global jury, rendering second-by-second judgments on social networking sites and cellphone text-message screens.
Despite the rudeness of doing so, 64 percent of employees report that they will ignore a meeting in which they are participating to answer email, answer a cellphone, update their social status, or send an instant message.