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"At the time of publication, Burger King had not yet reclaimed control over its Twitter account. One Twitter user noted that the Burger King hack may not really be such a bad thing overall as it elevates Burger King into the national conversation, even if it is for a horribly embarrassing incident. Any publicity is good publicity, right?"

Alex Pang, a visiting fellow at Microsoft Research Cambridge, actively researches this area. Pang proposes a new paradigm called contemplative computing. Today he gave a talk on the idea at the Lift France 2011 conference and has published a PDF of it. You can also find a rough draft of his paper on contemplative computing. So can computers actually help improve our concentration and contemplation, instead of leading us into distraction? The problem, as Pang puts it, is that "Technologies that were supposed to help us think better, work more efficiently, and connect more meaningfully with others now interrupt us, divide our attention, and stretch us thin."