And another part of this: to engage in erecting an identity, finding the site, and exchanging messages, is a fairly abstract, sophisticated skill set. In order to even begin to acquire that skill set, you need to learn to use a keyboard, probably a mouse, understand pointing, and clicking. You have to (in order to do that) put a complex computing device in place, know enough to hook it up, and understand the rudiments of networking. Then you have to find some time in your real-day concerns to plug it all in, fire it up, log in and find a thread to post to.

Given all these departures from human nature, how can you characterize anything that happens on top of all that as "native" behaviours? It strikes me like trying to analyze the psychology of a bunch of Puccini dramatis personae, or like the gals in the hairdresser shops who have lengthy discussions on the psychology, emotions, and motives of completely fictitious characters in soap operas.

A