I found myself reading Richard Ling’s The Mobile Connection in the discomfort of an airport terminal gate. When I say discomfort, I refer not only to the hard vinyl seat and poor lighting but also to the multitude of fellow passengers chatting loudly on cell phones. The audible barrage of one-sided conversations is a distraction to which society is reluctantly growing accustomed. We soon may not imagine a world without it. While the book did little to quiet the Bluetooth-equipped gentleman sitting next to me, it did provide an illuminating and enjoyable understanding of how and why we arrived in this cell-phone-rich society.