“People crave the mutual understanding and dependability that come through long-term relationships”

Rootedness in physical space is important, often crucially so: People crave the mutual understanding and dependability that come through long-term relationships. Truly buoyant physical communities today, though, will be those that recognize the ways in which digital community organization reinforces their natural strengths so they can be more democratic and inclusive and better retain their members. Accordingly, those who have discovered the humanity remarkably enabled via social media will go deepest with these relationships when they set down roots and commit to physical community.

Aryeh Bernstein, “Virtual Strength: How the Internet Fosters Community”, Sh’ma (June 2014), 6.