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But it’s easy to tweet all the time, to post pictures of what I’m doing, to keep social relations up.” She paused for a second, before continuing: “Things like Twitter have actually given me a much bigger social circle. I know more about more people than ever before.”

The rest are weak ties — maintained via technology.

Remote acquaintances will be much more useful, because they’re farther afield, yet still socially intimate enough to want to help you out.

If you’re reading daily updates from hundreds of people about whom they’re dating and whether they’re happy, it might, some critics worry, spread your emotional energy too thin, leaving less for true intimate relationships.

“They can observe you, but it’s not the same as knowing you.”

The act of stopping several times a day to observe what you’re feeling or thinking can become, after weeks and weeks, a sort of philosophical act.

In an age of awareness, perhaps the person you see most clearly is yourself.