It's not just socializing. It's hard work.

You thought surfing the net and working on MySpace pages was all about socializing. How wrong you were. It's all about training for the work force of the future. That's what the New York Times says in an article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/us/20internet.html?_r=1&hp) posted recently. Okay, I can't quite get the hang of having the link linked to a word on my blog so that you just click on the word and it will take you to the article. You'll have to cut and paste the link. I'll work on it.

But the point is clear, socializing is a good skill we need to have. It's really part of leadership. As one of the researchers says, "...their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page.”

So, MySpace and FaceBook are really powers for good and not slackering? In a way, yes.

As the recent economic downturn points out, we're turning into a country that is more and more moving toward a service- and computer-based economy and less toward production of goods. We have to start thinking that way. As in some other things, youth tend to point the way, if inadvertently, toward the future. It's not so much that they're looking for the future as that they're just looking and exploring what's out there. But, that's where the future is.