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I was never very popular. For a short time I got to sit at the “it” table in high school and then I didn't. But it was only years later, when rereading (for some reason) the class president's entry in my yearbook, realizing that he had always liked me (he liked me, he really liked me! OK, so I'm no Sally Field). But popular I was not. Now a new study has just come out that says that if you're hot when you're 13, you're probably not, 10 years later. I'm not quite sure that's true. I know a lot of popular people from my high school who went on to become huge successes – a girl from my creative writing class who everybody fought to sit next to since first grade is now a veterinarian, and a boy, an incredible hunk, is a cowboy, riding herd in the Southwest (really). The New York Times quotes an expert as saying that, as fast-moving middle-schoolers, these kids are driven by a heightened longing to impress friends. And that, they...

OK, I'll admit.  I love it when I see likes on stuff I write.  The good news is, if someone likes something online, chances are it will induce others to like it, too. Found this out today in a story in the NYT by Kenneth Chang, who writes, "If you 'like' this article on a site like Facebook, somebody who reads it is more likely to approve of it, even if the reporting and writing are not all that great." We'll skip that last part! But it's true.  How many times have you checked out something on Facebook a friend "liked"?  Even more insane, even if a friend dislikes something, Chang reports, "An unfair negative reaction will not spur others to dislike the article. Instead, a thumbs-down view will soon be counteracted by thumbs up from other readers." Wish I could say I've seen that happen.  I remember writing several years ago an essay on parenting in which I talked (anonymously) about a friend and her humorous, I thought, way ...