<div align=justify>Could you imagine a world without the Internet? Even for people like me, who had no Google or Facebook — or even Gopher — when we were children, the offline world we once knew almost feels like a hazy dream to some of us now. I only vaguely remember what life was like when “research” meant biking to the library to do term papers and social activities were strictly limited to hanging out at the mall.

<div align=justify>Could you imagine a world without the Internet? Even for people like me, who had no Google or Facebook — or even Gopher — when we were children, the offline world we once knew almost feels like a hazy dream to some of us now. I only vaguely remember what life was like when “research” meant biking to the library to do term papers and social activities were strictly limited to hanging out at the mall.

Sometimes I wonder if those analog days ever really existed at all. Whenever the memories wash in, I have to struggle to remember certain details, much the same way I do when I wake up from a dream with strange bits of dialogue still clinging to my lips. Did I really sit and have tea with Justin Bieber and Sigmund Freud in a field of purple posies? Likewise, I reach into my memory and wonder if my first crush actually existed. I lost touch with him so long ago because he lived far away and long distance calls were expensive. But was he real? Was he false? The dream and the memory from the past both occupy the same fuzzy space in my brain. The only evidence I have that Matthew truly existed is a letter that I still keep in a box in my closet. It’s a sacred piece of postal mail, a love letter he wrote completely in long-hand. It’s in tatters now, but the bad penmanship and beautiful sentiments are still there, as is a very faint scent of Drakkar Noir, his brother’s cologne of choice that he pilfered and spritzed on so long ago.

Sometimes I wonder if those analog days ever really existed at all. Whenever the memories wash in, I have to struggle to remember certain details, much the same way I do when I wake up from a dream with strange bits of dialogue still clinging to my lips. Did I really sit and have tea with Justin Bieber and Sigmund Freud in a field of purple posies? Likewise, I reach into my memory and wonder if my first crush actually existed. I lost touch with him so long ago because he lived far away and long distance calls were expensive. But was he real? Was he false? The dream and the memory from the past both occupy the same fuzzy space in my brain. The only evidence I have that Matthew truly existed is a letter that I still keep in a box in my closet. It’s a sacred piece of postal mail, a love letter he wrote completely in long-hand. It’s in tatters now, but the bad penmanship and beautiful sentiments are still there, as is a very faint scent of Drakkar Noir, his brother’s cologne of choice that he pilfered and spritzed on so long ago.

Our online lives are such fragile things. And it might be a slippery slope when we give up so much of ourselves to them.

Our online lives are such fragile things. And it might be a slippery slope when we give up so much of ourselves to them.

This is why she makes the case for solitude. The way we digitally connect to people — whether friends or “friends” — gives us the “the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship,” says Turkle, who published “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other” last year. We keep seeking these things out to stave off isolation. But, she says, if we can’t let ourselves be alone, we’ll only wind up more lonely.

This is why she makes the case for solitude. The way we digitally connect to people — whether friends or “friends” — gives us the “the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship,” says Turkle, who published “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other” last year. We keep seeking these things out to stave off isolation. But, she says, if we can’t let ourselves be alone, we’ll only wind up more lonely.