stalking

i was just "googling"/stalking my spanish teacher and had a (MILDLY) profound realization:

this whole thing of stalking/researching/googling/etc., has become a much less social activity with the advent and widespread use of the internet. i just saw the box cover of the vhs of "now and then" at someone's apt the other night (i LOVED that movie when i was but a pre-teen), and i just now thought of that scene where they are all going through the newspaper clippings looking for her mother's death, and then they find all that other stuff about the creepy guy's son having died, or whatever- and it's this whole social thing and they provide each other with amusement and support in turn.
and now.... we sit alone starting at a screen wasting time learning more useless facts in a day than i can count.

i think i always loved that movie so much because it seemed like the childhood/pre-teenhood i wished i'd had. maybe that's why everyone liked it?