Technology and trials

There are starting to be more and more trials that are being tossed out as a result of jurors using technology to research from their iPhone or Blackberry resulting in mistrials. Because people have become so accustomed to using technology for so much of their daily lives, I bet many don't even realize they are breaking rules stipulated to the jury. How often do you automatically do some form of a search about something to have a better understanding?

Imagine if you are a juror on a trial and the prosecution or defense uses a term or talks about something you have to understanding of and you want to know more to be able to make a better decision as a juror. Or even when you are overly connected, much like myself, and you decide to send a Tweet out about something you are doing. It just so happens that you are in jury deliberations when you do send out a message as an instinctual process. You broke the rules of being on a jury.

I'm sure we'll see more instances of this as we go forward. What if it ends up altering the way in which trials are carried out? Might be something interesting to watch as we go forward with technology that becomes more omnipresent in our lives.