Linda Stone, former Microsoft social computing researcher, coined the term "continuous partial attention" and spoke at Supernova 2005. Nat Torkington took notes which have been widely linked. The gist is, as far as I can manage, that folks have electronically networked themselves to death, attention wise, fragmenting a scarce resource across too many connections. Next up, there will be a huge premium on committed attention through a small set of trusted connections.
As an aside, practically any work related meeting I attend, with more than three people, has an abundance of overequipped powerusers not paying focused attention. Faculty meetings, classes, academic conferences, you name it. I'm wondering when this reaches the point where committed engagement becomes a competitive advantage.