my first social experience

So, I took the leap and tried to get feedback from my (vast!) social network.

My best friends, both online and off-, I met through writing for a BYU website. (It's top-secret. I can't tell you. Look at this week's Daily Universe Top 5 if you really care.) These are a group of unusually literary, witty, well-read, thoughtful, and just plain awesome twenty-somethings. So I had high hopes that someone would respond.

My online avatar. I once had a fling with a guy who looks like this, no joke. 

This site uses anonymous handles, which I really think helps take the edge off of some of the sensitive things we discuss both on the site and on its attendant message board. My good friend Rachel, codename Whistler, had this to say:

I feel some disinterest in your pitches since I'm not from/in Salt Lake City. Are you going for the local thing, or could you make it have a broader appeal to Utah/outdoorspeople?

We first met in a Book of Mormon class wayyyy back in '06, when we were both freshmen. I was really, really excited for her feedback both because we're friends IRL (I recently went to a huge houseparty she hosted, and she is married to my boyfriend's best friend's brother, if you can follow that thread), and as a psychology undergrad and comp lit master's dropout, I thought she was uniquely qualified to chime in.

I will probably lean towards a more global interpretation of Stegner's Recapitulation while not ignoring its Salt Lake City setting, if that makes sense.

Maybe this criticism seems negative, but I thought it was helpful! A. It's concise. B. It addresses real issues with my first thesis statements. C. It doesn't attack me as a person (always nice).

I am glad my social network includes such wonky people -- but please, would you expect anything less? :-)

Politically Speaking. . .

Fellow Bloggers, friends;  We are gathered here today in this period of profound change in communication.  My focus is social media’s effect on communication and relationships within the family.  Social networking has replaced the intimate interactions within most American families.  Family conversations have been replaced by texting sessions.  Family activity time has given way to countless hours of Internet surfing resulting in disconnected families.

Which reminds me of the worried mother’s comment to her teenage son as he slips through the door in the wee hours of the morning,  “would it kill you to update your Twitter status if you’re going to stay out so late?” 

Not that social networking is bad in itself, but