Terrified of being alone, yet afraid of intimacy, we experience widespread feelings of emptiness, of disconnection, of the unreality of self. And here the computer, a companion without emotional demands, offers a compromise. You can be a loner, but never alone. You can interact, but need never feel vulnerable to another person.

Kids have moved from, "I have a feeling, I want to make a call," to "I'd like to have a feeling, I need to send a text." In other words, there's a continual need for validation. They're constituting a thought or feeling by sending it out for votes. That's really not where you want to be emotionally.

Telephone companies sell us voice plans because they know we're not going to use them. We're hiding from each other. People say that calls aren't efficient, but trying to bring efficiency into your intimacy can get you into a lot of trouble.

We're lonely, but we're afraid of intimacy.

Does virtual intimacy degrade our experience of the other kind and, indeed, of all encounters, of any kind?

I love sharing photographs and websites, I'm for all of these things. I'm for Facebook. But to say that this is sociability? We begin to define things in terms of what technology enables and technology allows.

Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I'd like to learn how to have a conversation.