My Imaginary Friend

I was thinking about the practice of blogging and its fictional audience. Whenever people write, their audience is imagined. Sometimes it is themselves that they are writing to. That is how I feel when I write in my private blog. I have limited the access only to myself and my best friend, so I know that my only audiences would be the two of us. For other people who have just started their blogs and not shared the address, I wonder if their blog is like their imaginary friend -- or the "Diary" in "Dear Diary", but now we have "Dear Blog"?
Speaking of imaginary friends, I feel like kids nowadays don't need imaginary friends any more. Technology and commercialism creates so many personalities in toys and games for kids. Imagination and creativity aren't encouraged at the basic level any more. They are always built upon the technology, similar to our class discussion about the open source add-ons. Kids don't create create forts out of cardboard boxes and pillows, but rather create their dream space on The Sims or Second Life. Their medium for imagination has changed, and somewhat narrowed down to the media they use.
I am a product of this change too. I feel much more comfortable logging my thoughts by connecting my mind straight to the keyboard and publishing it in text on the cyberspace. I am tuned to visually seeing my message, and it is more fluent and precise than speaking. Or the process can be reversed - it is because that I am fluent textually that I feel comfortable publishing on the internet. As a common understanding in science, one can't assume a cause-and-effect relationship, but only an association. Nonetheless, I believe children are born with a sense of vivid imagination, which needs to be exercised and
encouraged. Technology is not the only facet where it should happen.