I don't believe in the Garden of Eden. I don't believe in the Fall from Grace. I don't believe God made the world in seven days nor that He created Eve from one of Adam's ribs. I don't believe that eating from the Tree of Knowledge is a sin.

I don't believe in this religious tale. But more importantly, I do not subscribe to its widespread cultural after-effects.

I have no yearning for a return to the Garden. I don't believe it ever existed. I don't believe that we once lived in harmony with Nature (whether in the Book of Genesis or in the Teddy Roosevelt or Bill Clinton administrations), but now, thanks to the television / the Internet / the Facebook / the cellphone, that suddenly we find ourselves adrift from what is sacred and what is good.

Don't misunderstand me. My rejection of this Biblical story does not mean I embrace that other grand narrative: Progress. Things don't always get better. "Things fall apart," if you will. But when they crumble, we cannot cling to a nostalgia for a time that never existed.

I wrote a story this week on some of the latest research into the relationship between text-messaging and literacy in children. It was, I confess, deliberately provocative as I grow weary of those stories that invoke some bygone time when children were smarter, when they did their homework with utter joy, when they did their chores without asking.

And quite frankly, I was surprised that the blow-back to my story came not from the legions of Internet trolls but from one of my oldest and dearest friends. He insisted I was wrong -- wrong about the research, wrong to write the story. I've been out of the classroom too long, he said. I've become part of the problem.

The problem, he argued, was technology. It was ruining children's spelling. It was ruining family's relationships. It was ruining our understanding of and appreciation for the natural world. We are logged on and tuned in to the Internet at the expense of our place in the Garden.

And if I'm not the snake that tempts people to disobey God, I'm close.

But I reject that mythology. It may be the sacred story some people tell themselves, but I don't buy it. And I reject it as an overarching political, historical, and philosophical narrative as well.

Of course, I am no innocent. I am deeply implicated and invested in my own story about technology and connectivity. I spend my days immersed in information, in knowledge, in technology. I stare at computer screens. I can't put my phone away. I love my work. I work all the time. My work is about technology and knowledge. My work utilizes technology and knowledge. My work makes me rely on Twitter, monitor my iPhone, cherish RSS feeds, set-up push notifications so that I am always taking in (and ideally, when the creative juices are flowing, churning out) information, words, stories.

For those that feel bombarded by this world of real-time information streams, text-messaging, and Internet connectivity, you are free to step back. Purge technology from your world. But do not call what you do sacred only to snarl derisively and suggest my actions are profane. Do not suggest that my embrace of technology is somehow a sign of The Fall. Do not suggest that by abandoning our cellphones, our computers, the Internet, information that we can return to The Garden.

We never really lived there, after all.