With so much nonsense written about this subject, it's refreshing to read Kate Bussmann's well-argued and properly supported discourse on how technology has both positively and negatively impacted our relationships on and offline. (My own, more personal take on the subject was published here last February)

But it doesn’t necessarily take anything that complicated. Stef Sullivan Rewis, a web developer who was the first person to get engaged via tweet in 2008, now lives in Arizona with her husband, but when they met they lived in different states and built their relationship via Skype, instant message and Twitter. “If he was in a different time zone, he’d Skype me after dinner, put his computer next to his bed and go to sleep with it on, so I’d have him in the corner of my screen,” she says. “Back in the olden days, it would have been impossible, but we were able to stay connected.”