In a 1986 Washington Post article, a reporter warned: It’s certainly the illusion of intimacy—the instant gratification of human contact without responsibility or consequences or actual involvement . . . but the danger is that going online instead of going into the real world ultimately turns conversation into a spectator sport. But what the authorities call danger is often nothing more than a better option. I mean, what was in the real world, anyway? Names we hadn’t chosen, families we couldn’t leave, language that had to be spelled out instead of the much more sensible LOL and BRB—whole
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