Probably you've gathered we read. Not strictly because we use East Coast Liberal Elitist language like "[p]robably you've gathered" or that we put the letter P there in brackets just then because we changed the case when we quoted ourselves. Hopefully, without knowing one twinkle about us, our little Packawhallop blog and what we like to call its smart exuberance has conveyed that. That we read. 

Point? 

Jonathan Franzen. He's an author we know and love. Not personally know. Through his work. People who read say weird stuff like that: "[A]uthor we know and love," when they don't know the author personally and also don't love him, or her, in a sense that we love our families the way you love yours. And they use brackets when quoting and changing case. 

Love. Franzen has an article in The New York Times, the paper East Coast Liberal Elitists like us read, about living in the real world and living in the digital world. It's about being connected and disconnected. And it's about reconnecting. We have to eat dinner now, but consider checking it out. 

http://nyti.ms/jzSMMi

If you have an online subscription to The New York Times, we recommend the story they're running on anti-oversharing sites, like Path. Such services, while they don't cast the biggest possible nets, they do let you do what some of the biggest social media sites do not so well: Share stuff with your friends. Your real friends. Cool stuff.

http://nyti.ms/iY84JW

It's an obvious, simple reduction for how the tools should work. Juxtapose Facebook and Twitter: If we were completely and brutally honest, we'd acknowledge we are all reduced to sluts in front of computers and smart phones, making "friends" with anyone who happens to be online. Ugh. Feels dirty rereading that.