'A romantic, says Nietzsche, is someone who always wants to be elsewhere. If that's so, then the children of the Internet are romantics, for they perpetually wish to be someplace else and the laptop reliably takes them there. The e-mailer, the instant messanger, the Web browser are all dispersing their energies and interests outward, away from the present, the here and now. The Internet user is constantly connecting with people and institutions far away, creating surrogate communities that displace the potential community at hand.'
Mark Edmundson, Why Teach? p.36.
