Community used to be something that only took place face to face.  You lived in your town and knew your extended family and your neighbors and the people who attended church and school with you.  Things were pretty inclusive and freedom was harder to achieve.  People also received more help in making their living from the people in their community, because at that point that’s how it worked.  These days things are much more anonymous.  It is both freeing and isolating.  Most of the sense of community that many people seem to feel presently comes from online community sites where they post their updates and tell what is going on in their lives.  I have found these community sites a good place to reconnect with friends I’ve lost touch with, something that is also easy to do in this divided world where we spend most of our time not seeing each other face to face.

I also have found these websites, especially one of the older ones, to be very useful for locating an online writer and musicians.  I have a number of my poetry posted on one of these sites, and I got quite a bit of feedback from other writers that way.  Online authors are all over the place and you can appreciate a stranger’s effort or you can read the online writing of your friends and family.  Most people post some kind of online writing.  When I first joined a community site I thought it was really fun to think about how to describe myself for others to see.  These days I don’t spend as much time on there, so I rarely post anything new.  I watch others post writing though, and it seems to be a good outlet for people doing nine to five jobs.  It helps people keep in touch.  And even if it is kind of a unusual out branching of modern society and technology, there is a lot to be said for being in close touch with your loved ones.