How to find support online during life’s big passages (for Oprah.com)

Friends are there to share your celebrations, support you through difficult transitions, and mourn your losses. Social media enable that sharing and support in new ways, across distances that would formerly exclude people who are far away but dear to your heart. Find out how to get the support you need online.

Social networks say good-bye to difficult but crucial interactions

Todd Essig has a thoughtful post about how social networks have affected the process of saying good-bye in our culture. Now that the hospital where he works is closing, he anticipated more than the usual end-of-school-year good-byes. Instead, he’s seen less: as...

Now on Oprah.com: Life passages online, plus an empty nest bonus

My latest blog post for Oprah.com talks about ways to get support during life passages. Whether you’re celebrating milestones like the birth of a baby, a marriage or a birthday, or confronting challenges like death or illness, I’ve got some pointers on how the web can help. This post looks at one passage in particular: your newly empty nest.

Do social networks make birthdays better?

Today is my 39th birthday. Among other things this means I’ve now spent 2/3 of my life online, since we got our first computer when I was 13. (Apparently it also means that a year from now I’ll be forty, which all my forty something women friends tell me...