Kids these days (e.g. "Our Electronic Society'")

I firmly believe in the power of a "connection with the outside world." And, as far as I can tell, most Americans in today's day and age spend FAR too much time indoors -- most vocations require the use of a desk, pen, paper, computer, etc. I'm thankful to see people taking a deficit and turning it into a benefit.

Once upon a time, when I was a Cuesta College student with two small children at home, ICQ (which is an antiquated version of AIM and Yahoo Messenger) was my link to a real human being who lived somewhere outside a fifty mile radius of my house... quite the feat for me to meet a perfect stranger and actually commit to talking to that person on an ongoing basis.

The ability to push all safety issues aside (because, after all, who's gonna REALLY find you via your IP address?) plays a huge part in a person's ability to connect with another via the internet.

However, according to the quote in Laura Freberg's blog (can be found at www.laurafreberg.com/blog ): [Pennebaker does have some reservations about the benefits of blogging about personal challenges. According to this article, Pennebaker recommends using journaling to ”…stop, stand back and look at your life….to make ‘life force corrections’ and then, well, go back to living rather than ‘a little too much navel gazing.’” ] leads me to an alternate way of viewing things: I do believe people need a REAL life with REAL live human beings as the counterpart to one's own meanderings. Too much of a good thing really isn't a good thing, as the saying goes.

This post was written by me in November, 2011. Unfortunately, my thesis, as I was hoping (I'll eventually post a copy when I can) didn't prove or disprove the theory I had.

But I still believe it to be true. And, thanks to Dr, Freberg for graciously providing me with the majority of the students I was able to survey for my results. She and I are on the same page. Make face-to-face contact and get on with life. "Learn by doing", as Cal Poly's motto goes...