Revenge of the Nerds

At the Apple store, Target, even Sears in the treadmill and weight bench department, a nerd greeted and helped me do something new or learn something different. These were kids with holes in their ears, black, dyed hair, eyes sparkly with curiosity and they brimmed with earnest intelligence.

They weren't the jocks or the in-crowd, but they were certainly the popular ones. They have information that everyone needs.

One thing I like about this new technological era is that the generations are brought together in a way. The elderly and Boomers as well as X'ers like me deferred to our young betters. They felt helpful and they were.

I love how technology doesn't discriminate. Old, young, fit, flabby, plain or fabulous, you can be a part of this world.

This Stanford study would seem to disagree with me in some ways. For example, the more people use the internet:

... the more they lose contact with their social environment.
This effect is noticeable even with just 2-5 Internet hours/week, and it rises substantially for those spending more that 10 hours/week, of whom up to 15 percent report a decrease in social activities. Even more striking is the fact that Internet users spend much less time of talking on the phone to friends and family: the percentage reporting a decrease exceeds 25 percent - although it is unclear to what extent this represents a shift to e-mail even in communicating with friends and family, or a technical bottleneck due to a single phone line being preempted by Internet use.

But I don't know if this is true. When my friends and family are online, we talk back and forth via chatting. The information might not rise to the level of a phone call. In fact, I don't really like talking on the phone anyway. In some ways, the internet has connected people.

What do you think?

Technology, especially the internet has made me
	Less connected with family
	More connected with family
	No change
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