Long ago, Marshall McLuhan spoke of the "global village." As a child hearing this, I envisioned a town made up entirely of little geodesic-domed houses. Now, I wonder if he truly foresaw what has come to be, a world in which a woman from Chicago logs on to her computer each evening to connect with her best friends — in California, Singapore, and Canada. The Internet has brought more than a plethora of information to our home computers, it has brought us the world.

Ann Landers, that purveyor of wet-noodled moral righteousness, has made it clear what she thinks of personal interaction on the Internet. She and her followers hold up evidence of cyber-infidelity and castigate the 'Net as a tool of the Devil. News stories proliferate: of a woman meeting up to discover that her online enamorata is not a healthy lusty man, but a dying woman with her chest bound; of people engaging in suicide pacts with folks they've never laid eyes on; of men baring their souls to enchantresses who turn out to be thirteen year old boys. While I am sure there are kernels of truth in all these stories (and that alligators roam the sewers of New York City), they strike me as so many wooden shoes thrown in the looms which are weaving the fabric of new societies.

Yes, I love the Internet. I would even go so far to say the Internet has saved my life. And like any zealot, I can trot out myriad examples of the terrific uses of chat rooms and newsgroups. I'm not about to climb into a pair of Nikes and check the comet schedule, though. I know there are misuses of the 'Net, and pitfalls to any interaction, be it online chat or line-dancing at the local saloon. I would like to make a case, however, for the distinction between chat rooms and true ' Net communities. Each has their place, but the blurring of the two in the minds of non-cyber savvy folk is what causes the confusion (and causes the phone calls from everyone's Aunt Martha who wants to be sure no axe murderer is coming for us the moment we've logged in).

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