In an article in The New Republic, Robert Wright touched on many USENET newsgroups.  Followring are his comments about alt.suicide.holiday:

...Alt.suicide.holiday, billed as a discussion of why suicide rates grow during holidays, turns out to consist partly of people trying to help each other get undepressed. There is something truly affecting, not to mention dramatic, about watching a person who may be contemplating suicide get help from someone who knows the territory. "This is my survival list & I walk the edge often.... Walking randomly until either my mind shuts up or my feet hurt.... I make myself call a friend.... I look at my dog and try to figure out who will take care of him and treat him well and spoil him if I off myself (I save this for the worst times.... I can't bear to take him with me & I can't bear to leave him behind). A pet helps. I pick an object. Anything, a plant, a jar, a piece of string on the carpet, a cat hair on the couch & I study it. I try to imagine different uses for it. I try to become whatever it is. I try to connect and imagine that object's connection with everything else. If I can somehow feel that link/connection then I know I am not completely alone & that I am connected (however tenuously) to this world & that I sorta belong here even if it seems I don't fit in with whatever is happening."

This sort of communication is the essence of the Net. As fun as it is to sit and watch fringe groups sound frivolous, most newsgroup traffic is from serious people finding communication they need or, at least, really want. And the level of discourse, though uneven, is often very high...

-from "Voice of America", by Robert Wright
in The New Republic, 9/13/93
Vol 209 Issue 11, p. 20

Last update: Tuesday, March 16, 1999 22:15