… who’s a recent Wesleyan grad reflects on the social networks she followed after the news of Johanna Justin-Jinich’s murder:
… [W]hen you’re part of a community, a crime produces shock, anger, a surplus of emotion, and you seek out information. This week, I learned how social networks offer a way through the clutter of “rational” reporting, sensationalism, and gossip that plague our tragedies, and are no substitutes for the proximity and empathy I was craving. These days, even after you leave a place, you get to keep your social bonds online. They lie dormant, ready to be reactivated with a few keystrokes, when you need them most.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:44PM
"This week, I learned how social networks offer a way through the clutter of ‘rational’ reporting, sensationalism, and gossip that plague our tragedies, and are no substitutes for the proximity and empathy I was craving."
I’m surprised you weren’t tempted to go all SOS on this sentence, which before I arrived at the following sentences had me believing that social networking was no substitute for proximity and empathy. Perhaps a "but" instead of the "and" after "tragedies,"?
May 11th, 2009 at 10:28PM
I was VERY tempted, Christopher. It’s a badly written sentence, in just the way you say. I guess SOSing felt like a distraction from the basic idea of the thing, which was really all I wanted to get across…
May 12th, 2009 at 11:44AM
I figured as much–but I was big-icked by that sentence, and commenting on it was cheap therapy.