James Drogan

Re Conversations with Dave

I read this article and wondered about his point.

"At the risk of enabling, does the Internet mean that all the rest of us are being made unwitting participants in the personal and political life of, um, crazy people?"

Well, Henninger hasn't forgone choice here. He, and we, are only unwitting if we decline to exercise choice.

"But researchers note that the isolation of Web life results in many missed social cues."

This is perhaps my greatest concern, not only about blogs, but about the 'net. I'll presume that Henninger would agree.

Little in the way of social skills, beyond CAPS versus lowercase and emoticons, is developed over the 'net.

On the other hand, some of my students do not speak in class for a understandable reasons. On the 'net, however, they become eloquent and make significant contributions to the quality of the learning environment. I had a Chinese student tell me how involvement in the on-line discussions in my class helped her to overcome her shyness.

Perhaps a value of blogs and the 'net is that it provides a low stakes way to develop personality and self-esteem. We should not, I think, discount this.