NORTON - Wheaton College student Ted Nesi was in London filling an internship with the British Labour Party, when he had an epiphany: the world he left behind seemed only a fingertip away.

"You have access to e-mail, Skype (an Internet-based free phone service) and the same newspapers," he said of his fall 2005 venture abroad.

"With globalization," he added, "change sometimes happens so fast people don't have the chance to realize it all at once."

Nesi, an Attleboro native who writes occasionally for The Sun Chronicle, shared one of his own more recent realizations about globalization in a short piece for PBS earlier this month, as part of that network's "Generation Next" project.

A PBS producer originally contacted him because of a reflective Christmas column he penned for the school newspaper, The Wire, in December. That column was reprinted on PBS' Web site. Nesi was then selected to write a 250-word piece centered on the theme of New Year's resolutions.

He chose to discuss the paradox of globalization.

"It's never been easier to make connections than it is today," Nesi wrote, "yet more and more we're isolated in our own insular bubbles."

Urging youth to become more engaged with the world around them, Nesi argued in his piece that "society is becoming centered on the idea of 'my space'" to the exclusion of "'our space' - those things we must share, from our towns to our planet."

The Wheaton senior says he thinks globalization is a dual force, capable of creating both alienation and interconnectedness.

"Those things are a product of the same forces," he explained.

By way of example, he cited a typical scene on his own campus.

"People can easily download shows onto their iPod they'd have never heard otherwise, which is great," he said. "But when you're walking around with your iPod plugged in, you don't stop and have a conversation with the person walking right by you."

Nesi has not encountered that problem on campus lately.

As school started last Tuesday, people have stopped to congratulate him after seeing his picture on the college's Web site. Highlighting the relevance of his insight about globalization, he joked, "It's funny, Wheaton is so small ... but I had to go through PBS to get recognized at Wheaton."