More than 70 percent of the online adult population in this country uses social media, either to comment on life as the world rolls by or to influence the direction of the roll, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.

People chime in on, and with, what they had for lunch, opinions on Obamacare and contributions to breadedcats.com, where followers post pictures of cats wearing bread hats. We are a long way from the Gutenberg press: Just about anybody can get a blog up and running, and some people operate multiple Facebook sites for themselves, their businesses and their pets.