Mark Athitakis links to an interview with Richard Russo in the small-town Wilton Bulletin of Connecticut:

To Mr. Russo, Facebook resembles an attempt to create the sense of community found in small towns. “What is Facebook but an attempt to replicate something lost, a real community? People in small towns can’t avoid each other,” he said. “They have to take each other into account, which may be both the best and worst thing about them.”

What about writers like Sinclair Lewis who have disparaged small towns? “Sinclair Lewis saw such places as breeding grounds for parochial stupidity,” Mr. Russo said. “He’d probably feel the same about Facebook, where like-minded morons gather and draw solace from the fact that there are so many others out there with identical misconceptions. Sherwood Anderson, with whom I feel a closer kinship, saw in isolated small town lives an inner richness.”