They say if you love something, let it go. Well I’ve spent about two months feverishly hacking away at problem sets and extracurriculars. But sure enough, one errant click and it comes back to me — nytimes.com — and I can’t wrench myself away. One of the most addictive things about the New York Times website (and maybe why I never actually got into reading the print edition) is how hip it is. They know what digital media means, and every aspect of their website shows that they just “get it.” Not to mention that the crosslinking between their articles is almost as dangerous as Wikipedia to pathological procrastinators like me. I frequent their massive blog network almost more than I read the front page, and I bet there are many online readers like me who never even read the newspaper before it hit the internet.

As a case in point, take the reader feedback pages they set up for some of their more thought-provoking articles. Today there was a science section piece about sexual infidelity in the animal kingdom, and readers were asked to comment on whether they thought humans were in general inclined toward monogamy. The reader comments were so insightful and interesting that I was surprised by how many of them I read through.

There may well be instances where complete monogamy comes naturally to persons bonded as a societal pair (marriage, civil union, common-law hook-ups). That is beautiful. What pains me to watch is the number of perfectly good unions — with so many positive aspects to them that one would think are powerful enough to by far to transcend the issue of sexual adventures (or even longer-term side affairs) engaged in by one or both parties — that are completely abandoned and torn down because of unrealistic expectations, expectations that Church and society teach us to hold but which ignore our biology and our history.
[i.n.kazar, NYC on "In Most Species, Faithfulness Is a Fantasy"]

Of course, as a disclaimer, I should mention that I usually dislike the NYTimes science section, and have a personal tendency to use the phrase “insightful and interesting” to mean “agrees with my personal opinions and phrased eloquently.” (But more on that later.)