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Brad Keats has a few reasons.

When we caught up with him, he was perched - along with several other pals - at the counter of Sarkis Grill, a tiny diner in Evanston, Ill.

Between bites of a bacon-cheese sandwich, he told us why he frequents Sarkis when checking up on friends might be more easily accomplished via cell phone.

"We walk in and it feels like people know us and we know people.

It's all smiles," said the 19-year-old.

"Even when the food is done, you can still hang out for a while.

...

It's just like a good place to be with people."Ray Oldenburg, should he ever visit Sarkis, might give the diner his blessing.

He's the sociologist who 15 years ago coined the term "third place" to describe such hang-outs, beyond first place (home) and second place (work).

Despite all the techno-gadgets that keep us in contact with others, he says that places where people can relax regularly and establish connections with others are essential to our well-being.

"What good are they (those gadgets) at a funeral?

" Oldenburg said.

"What good are they at a wedding?

What good are they when you need a helping hand physically?

What good are they when you want to borrow something?

"Virginia Gundlach might agree.

She works at Markland-Hubbard Gourmet Provisions, a scgne's throw ...

"The net makes available a practical infinity of small bits that we can then sort through just about any way we want to.

The big benefits are that we now can shape our world more closely around our genuine interests (as opposed to having to rely upon the guesses made by editors of various sorts) and we can discover rich relationships that enhance the meaningfulness of things and our understanding of them.

"The big disadvantage is that we get lost all the .

.

.

time," Weinberger continues.

"It's artificial befuddlement, but we're being befuddled by abundance.

That strikes me as better than never being able to lose your way because there's such a scarcity of ways to go." In my opinion, wilfing has all the earmarks of a trend, the kind that gets discussed on talk shows and endlessly in blogs.

Here's how I see the pop-cult arc of wilfing: First, wilfing appears as a keyword on the blog search website, Technorati.com.

Then someone will write Wilfing for Dummies.

A few weeks later, watch for the Time magazine cover story "Wilfing: A danger to your sex life?

" along with a special report by Dr Sanjay Gupta on CNN.

Oprah will then have a show featuring those who are in "wilf recovery" programs.

Larry King will interview two congressmen in a tight election race wh...