Are we getting closer to the death of distance? Or are the technical challenges for truly meaningful human communication still too difficult?

In her book, The Death of Distance, Frances Cairncross makes a cogent argument that distance is becoming irrelevant as the communications revolution unfolds (and as bandwidth and connectivity accelerates over the internet). Written in 2001 and updated last year, it’s an excellent read — if you at all enjoyed Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat — since it is communications technologies (and the reduction in cost of their use) that is accelerating the flattening of the earth and our ability to communicate with others regardless of where they are physically.

But how close are we in connecting us in ways that are human?

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