Are bloggers anti-social?

How introspective are bloggers? There is a view of blogging and bloggers that carries with it a sense of self-absorption tinged with anti-social behavior. Diane de la Paz has an article that looks at this issue in considerable depth. She carefully reads the blogs and then interviews the bloggers to get answers to the anti-social blogger question. From one interview:

Others imagine the blogger gazing alternately into his navel and at his keyboard, hour after hour, instead of going out to face actual people. The bloggers interviewed for this story, when asked about that image, make a pretty good case against it.

"Sure, we do spend a lot of time visiting each other (online) and updating our own sites," writes Dayment. "But it's certainly not a waste of time. I've met some truly awesome people via blogs, and I try to meet whoever I can in person. If I'm about to travel to a foreign city, I can find bloggers who can tell me where to go and what to see. If I'm having a computer problem at work, I have a large group of geeky friends online that can help me. We get a lot of support from each other. Bloggers are out there experiencing the world, only we get to share these experiences with everyone online as well."