Quentin Schultzemy professor and author of the forthcoming Habits of the High-Tech Heart e-mailed a response to my query about blogging. This may come across as party-pooping, but it's a good balance to all the giddy blogo-promotion going on.

One of the great ironies of the information age is that so many people feel lonely and isolated from others. Years from now anthropologists will probably conclude that our society was media-rich and communication-poor. No society ever had more means of communication, yet no members of a society ever felt so out of touch with one another. Blogging, like personal Web pages and live Web cams, is one way that individuals can speak out and feel like they matter in this impersonal world. Blogging is a public way of saying, "I'm here. I exist. Please acknowledge me!" ...

The problem is that bloggers typically do not see their role as contributing to a shared public life. Instead, they tend to blog as a matter of purely personal and often self-disclosing venting of personal feelings. Too often blogging becomes a strangely public form of talking to one's self about intimate matters, whether faith or personal relationships. The best blogging is truly journalistic--aimed at contributing to the public good, not to personal catharsis. ...

There is no high-tech means to instant friendship of lasting merit. ... In fact, the extent to which we spend time online rather than in person, the weaker our communities will become. We need to be sharing lengthy meals together, walking together, volunteering together, worshipping together and the like--not blogging. We need to revive traditional Christian social practices such as hospitality, friendship, neighborliness and Sabbath leisure. Only if these kinds of practices are strong can we really afford blogging.