Monday, November 26, 2007

The bizarre side of the web

It's amazing, this Internet, full of resources, endless stories of people with similar lives. I spend a lot of time reading about apraxia, and sometimes I read stories about people with kids with "real" problems. Medical nightmares. I think I'm trying to give myself perspective, but often it's just heartbreaking stories of people I'll never meet. Maybe it's not wise.

So, through one of my favorite online special needs resources, I hear about a message board just on speech problems! I'm amazed and excited! I save it for later in the day. Later, with anticipation, I start looking at the different topics under discussion. Augmentative and alternative means of communication. Dealing with insurance. Using essential fatty acid supplementation. Favorite products. Oh, where to start, it's all so wonderful! Then I notice the Last Post date stamps. Fri May 26, 2006. Sun Mar 25, 2007. And how many replies to threads. Hardly any. It's the first extensive online ghost town I've discovered.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah, I expect there's a lot of Usenet ghosts, abandoned blogs, and dead MySpace profiles.

But the information's still good, right?

Bluestem said...

You know, it turns out you are right! Using the ghost town, I have made a new virtual friend who gets speech therapy at the same place we go to!