Are bloggers socially challenged?

Whitney Pastorek published a story in the Village Voice about how blogs seem to be ruining people's lives: particularly Whitney's. Why? The claim: that it prevents people from having person-to-person interactions. While I can see how this could be a possibility, I love having a blog and being able to read my friends' blogs. In this age of everyone being too busy to make a doctor's appointment, it allows me to catch up on my friends' lives and what they've been up to, where they are going and also, helps the blogger think through things going on in their lives. Sure, it means we spend more time in front of a computer, but how is it different from sitting and writing in your journal? Not much. Just more public. While I resisted the blog when I first heard about them and Jano started one, I'm now a blogger. It really is a good way for people, especially folks who don't keep in regular contact or live across the planet, to be abreast of what their friends are doing. I don't think it makes me anti-social. If anything, it allows me to be social in a different way, with my peers and similarly technologically enhanced friends. People also happen to use blogs to announce parties and other special events. Whitney, just deal, this is a techie world, and I'm a techie girl.