I think the thing that bugs me about the article is that there's no real balance to it. Not once does she admit that at least some people are able to make newer forms of communication compliment the older ones, and that makes her premise not line up with my reality. I work in an office where everyone had company e-mail and a work IM account, where lots of people work with headphones on, and the level of conversation, both casual and work-related, can become a din at times. My friends are all connected to the internet too, and many use text messaging, yet the moment we're in the same room together it's wall-to-wall talking.

Maybe the younger generation is different or something (certainly her inquiries are far broader than mine), but Turkle's account just feels thoroughly one-sided. We do need to work at figuring out the right way to engage these technologies, and some people are definitely getting it wrong. However, these technologies are here to stay, and they can also be more powerful and expressive than Turkle is willing to give them credit for.

The first analog Doctor Who RPG came out in 1985 by the way. The current one from Cubicle 7 (http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/) is pretty good too.

@atanguay: Well, there are also Vin Diesel Facts and Mr. T Facts out there.

Let's see...

1. Being a waitress *is* a real job. It involves talking to real people and actual physical labor, which makes it a bit realer than banking.

2. Getting a job, "real" or otherwise, isn't an easy thing these days. I've heard things have been improving, but for a while there were 5 unemployed people for every open job.

3. Part of the reason for the bad economy is unethical behavior on the part of the financial sector. I'm not saying all bankers are bad people, and they do work very hard, but I'm certainly not familiar with anything restaurant wait staff have been doing to tank the economy.

There are a lot of things to legitimately dislike about Twilight, from its turgid writing to the characters to the bad lessons it teaches about relationships. But I do feel like the Twilight hate has an extra, unnecessary edge to it. You would think it'd be too hard to go too far in criticizing something like Twilight, and yet people seem to pull it off.

@dev:

Having just visited some forums about D&D earlier today, I can tell you that male fantasies can be every bit as passionately ridiculous as female ones.

I have to wonder if whoever made that is familiar with S. John Ross' Pokethulhu RPG:

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/pokethulhu.htm

This is why I go to matinees whenever possible, and avoid opening nights.

And dammit, they missed out on the opportunity to parody the actual preshow nonsense.