But we adults are afraid. This is not the way we grew up. We had our group of friends, our own little group. Now, the groups to which today's young people belong are hundreds and even thousands strong. Their "friends" lists go on for pages, many of them hundreds or thousands of physical miles away. This is so far from the way we communicated and learned about each other, that we cannot understand it. So we do what most people do with things they do not understand. We ignore it. If it intrudes on the way we do things, we find ways to block it.