A few years ago I read a New York Times article about the increasing online interactions and their effect on real life or face-to-face interactions. I would have predicted that accesibility of blogging opinions online would create an environment where people would spew any crazy belief that popped into their head and onto a webpage, without really being held accountable for their position. However, it seems that the blogging community has opened up an opportunity for exchange for people to seriously contribute their perspective and be exposed to the ideas and the authentic beliefs of others (people and ideas they might not have been introduced to without blogs). Personally, I am excited about our class wikipedia possibly discovering the interconnectedness of our class. Being a student from an outside school, learning about my classmates through online interactions would make me aware of connections I shared with others in the class that I wouldn't have the chance to learn about in the classroom.

Clive Thompson writes: "Still, it's not only the fear of electronic exposure that drives us to tell the truth. There's something about the Internet that encourages us to spill our guts, often in rather outrageous ways. Psychologists have noticed for years that going online seems to have a catalytic effect on people's personalities. The most quiet and reserved people may become deranged loudmouths when they sit behind the keyboard, staying up until dawn and conducting angry debates on discussion boards with total strangers. You can usually spot the newbies in any discussion group because they're the ones WRITING IN ALL CAPS -- they're tripped out on the Internet's heady combination of geographic distance and pseudo-invisibility."