Tools to create electronic community are held forward by some as the salvation of our fragmented society, but they may be a fundamental part of the problem instead.

No one is denying that our society is in trouble. Community has broken down, and with it has gone neighborly feelings like trust and responsibility. Eligible voters gripe that the politicians are looking out for themselves rather than their constituents, then they stay home at election time and let them get reelected anyway.

The fragmentation of society may be the inevitable result of our technological age, with its focuses on mass production, specialization and optimization. But some people, rather than thinking in terms of lessening these effects and returning to simpler ways, are looking to technology as the way out of the problems it has created.

These thinkers, with their roots in the likes of Stewart Brand of Whole Earth Catalog fame, believe that we can create a new kind of community that is free from the ties of physical proximity. With personal computers, interactive televisions and video teleconferencing, they see a future where people can be in the middle of a hostile city or an apathetic suburb and still be a part of a community.

There are serious flaws in this argument, however. For one, it assumes you can remove physical contact without significantly reducing the quality of the exchange. University …

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