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I'll find places to grab as I walk and talk, sometimes even walking backwards because I have more control that way. People have no idea that I'm doing this.

We have seen from experience that, if we are in the habit of walking regularly on the same road, we are able to think about other things while walking, without paying attention to our steps.

People are so busy positioning themselves before the screen and talking on the damn cellphones, communicating, that we're not reading, and in fact we're not really communicating, either. We're not talking to each other. There's just all these screens and wires and technology in between.

Mobiles mean people know where you are.

When I walk outside, people have something to say about it.

The way we're attached to our phones these days, they buzz and twitch in our pockets, and we have to look and see if it was a text, a voicemail, or an e-mail. We're almost like lab rats. I tried to eschew the whole cell phone theory until I had kids; then, I had to be reachable at all times.

Long walks force a certain meditative awareness. You're not moving so fast that you miss the world's details passing by - in fact, you can stop to inspect something that might catch your eye.

If you're looking for ways of getting quick communication, maybe texting is the way to go. People can't walk these days without having one hand balancing a smart phone. If that's the way people are going to live, it is the case that something that vibrates in their hand is going to get their attention more quickly than an email.

My iPhone has changed my life - I spend hours taking photos of the sidewalk as I walk down the street. I like the casualness, that it's low-resolution.

A smartphone is great for when one person is documenting another thing or another person doing something.