People can leave their home, people can travel. If digital media expose to the curious a given community of shared interests, you have more avenues than ever for discovering it, and making contact. I simply can't see how this is worse than not even being able to find such communities while stuck in your supposedly superior town/neighborhood community of the people who live around you.
Sure they CAN leave their homes, but they aren't. There is a lack of positive face to face interaction with people you can see often. We need more than text on an online forum. We need facial expressions, we need body language, we need smell and touch. We need people who can see that we're in a low spot because they see us all the time to know the difference. We need the chance to do the same for others as well. We need to interact with people who have different opinions and interests or are at different stages of life. We need to be told we're wrong and to see the impact on others when we screw up.
