The ultimate 1st world problem: I haven't got time to answer my texts

While people are fighting for their lives around the globe, struggling just to find food to eat, clean water to drink, shelter, clothing, searching desperately for family members or a way to let them know they are safe..... I am sitting here completely flummoxed by communication: by the daily bombardment of texts, emails, posts, messages, voicemails, and tweets.

I really hope you aren't still waiting for the thank you card from Christmas. Christmas 2009.
Or the text from last night, for that matter.

I am completely incapable of utilizing my cellphone in a productive manner anymore.

I don't mean to make light of this. It's not funny - it's awful. And it's rude.

My social media accounts and wireless devices are ruining me.

My mother might as well be waiting for a collect call from some war-torn country, for the amount of time she has to wait for a call back from me. Several friends have resorted to communicating with me via facebook. And my darling aunts and brothers keep emailing me, to no avail. I read the messages and emails - I DO, I SWEAR I DO - but I am reading them in the carpool line. Or in the grocery store. Or at 7am when I turn on my phone and it starts dinging and vibrating and flashing and alerting itself right off the counter and onto the kitchen floor.

It's happened.

And I make an attempt to respond immediately, usually very briefly, from my Blackberry, standing at the kitchen counter in my robe or pulled over on the side of the road or waiting in line to check out. But rarely do I actually sit down and go back through all of the messages to give each one the attention and proper response it deserves. Because when I DO finally sit down at my computer, there is a whole slew of new messages in there. And then the phone rings. And then I get two new texts. And before you know it I have worked myself into a panic, turned off the phone AND the computer, and climbed back into bed.

Seriously.

I can't be alone in this.
Am I alone in this?
Are there people out there that are juggling 8 different forms of communication and still able to function in hte real world? Have they had a conversation with a live person, face-to-face, lately? Have they gone out to dinner without checking their cellphone during a lull in the conversation?

My husband chooses not to engage. He has a phone. He rarely texts. He doesn't have a personal email address. He doesn't belong to facebook. Or twitter.

And I am starting to think he has got the right idea. Maybe it does need to be all or nothing. Maybe I don't need to document every activity on three different accounts, with photos. I really don't think anything I have to say is so pressing that it needs to be tweeted in a parking lot, or texted from the side of the road.

Unless it's something important, like "bacon is on sale" or "I just saw Eddie Vedder". Because that, of course, is just providing a public service.