This is kind of a misleading article title, looking at a line like "still, for most teens, Facebook is still tops". I guess there should be an emphasis on *some* teens, namely, the *one* teen she uses as an example. My sister is in her mid-teens and connects with all of her friends through Facebook.
As a shy nerd who usually can't conjure up things to say on the fly, text-based communication is my favorite. Texting and instant messaging aren't talking at someone, they're talking with someone; the words just aren't spoken. The benefit for me is that I have more time to think of a response, I can easily go back and see what a person has said previously, and I can multitask and use my ears for other things such as listening to music (this could be an argument against text-based communication, but most youth agree that it doesn't drive a wedge between you and your conversation partner. In fact, I'm communicating with people so often, I wouldn't have time to listen to music if I didn't multitask). It's also a lot cheaper to get unlimited texting than unlimited voice on your phone. Face-to-face human contact is important, I just hate phone calls. Also, I agree that it's indeed rude to pay more attention to your mobile gadget than the human you're with when you are with one.
National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance? Ha! I'm not going to a fat acceptance blog or anything to actually see what they have to say, because the name alone is preposterous according to my oversimplified prejudices about fat. I'm now going to the various corners of the internet to encourage people to stop being fat by being cruel to them, because ubiquitous cruelty to overweight people seems to be working so far.
Just because a suit belongs to a furry doesn't mean that its owner "gets busy" in it. You might notice that most fursuits (including that one) don't have the facilities built in to the appropriate areas to allow for such a thing. They certainly exist on some suits, but come on, just because you're talking about a bizarre subculture doesn't mean that you shouldn't be mindful of sweeping generalizations.
I agree with the mothers' decisions. The boy might be treated badly by his peers. On the other hand, they might as well let him do it now that the fact that he wants to dress as a princess has gone public to the entire world on the Los Angeles Times website where it shows a photograph and his full name.
The passing popularity of Friendster and MySpace as social networking sites may have presented a pattern to us, but Facebook is way more of a behemoth than they ever were. It's like saying that Google is a fad of a search engine because AltaVista and Ask Jeeves are now passé. If Facebook DOES lose its popularity, it won't be to Tumblr. Tumblr isn't really in the same website category as Facebook; it's a blogging service, so it focuses more on sharing content than connecting with others.