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Already this same issue has reared its head at live theater as well. Some theaters are encouraging patrons to text and tweet during the show, presumably by way of interacting with and commenting on the performance. This is happening at the Broadway revival of Godspell, for instance, and the textors are seated in one specific area. i'll be seeing this in a few weeks, so I can comment then as to how distracting this ends up being. (The theater is in the round, so I can't help but think that the text-section will be noticeable from just about anywhere.)
There just might be some way of creating meaningful and engaging theater pieces that include live social networking, but if an audience is simply texting away during a traditional musical, it would be hard for the performers not to feel like their audience is bored and distracted. We actors usually want to weave a spell. Texting and tweeting feel to me like awfully mundane activities, inimical to surrendering to the spirit of a performance. But then, I'm instructed by the media to feel more out of touch and useless every day. (Maybe I'll write an interactive multi-media show about it.)
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