I’ve made 17 attempts at writing this column in the past three days. 
 
 The pattern is always the same: turn on the computer, log in to Pinterest and lose myself in the site’s churning cycle of interest, hope, inspiration, jealousy, desperation, despair and depression. 
 
 Pinterest is the hottest new social-networking tool. And it’s digital crack for women. 
 
 Even the tech world says this. “Pinterest is exceptionally sticky and keeps it users engaged for long periods of time,” comScore wrote in a blog in December. 
 
 It is surging in popularity, with about 11 million unique visitors last month, according to Forbes. The tech world is gaga over a site that may have reached the 10-million-user mark faster than any other. 
 
 What this amounts to is a virtual pin board, a space to organize photos from all over the Internet. 
 
 I know. It sounded useless to me, too. Then I visited it and fell down the black hole time suck that it is. 
 
 The bulletin boards are simple, clean spaces filled with cool pictures of food, crafts, travel spots, home remodeling and decorating ideas, fitness tips, hairstyles, furniture, architecture, kid projects, cute animal photos, cheeky sayings and wedding plans. 
 
 It’s the photo scrapbook of hopes, dreams and desires for grown-ups, mostly those of the female persuasion. And that raises the question of whether that’s actually a healthy thing for grown women to be spending time compiling a virtual hope chest. 
 
 Pinterest women give themselves parameters like addicts who are in the full bloom of denial: “Only after 9 p.m.” or “Only on the weekends and never at work.” 
 
 As one commenter put it on the DC Urban Moms forum: “so sorry that i was introduced to this. it’s very addicting.” 
 
 And it has come along at the perfect time, just as the novelty of Facebook is fading, having assured you that your ex is adequately mediocre and now your mom and your boss have friended you. 
 
 And unlike Facebook or Twitter, where it is ultimately obvious that your profile photo is from 1987 and your check-ins are no more exotic than Dairy Queen, Pinterest boards (which can never be made private), advertise only your hopes and dreams, the Stilton Gold style you aspire to, rather than the Velveeta life you live. 
 
 There is a game we’ve started playing in our house to underscore the eternal optimism of Pinterest. My husband gives me a word, I search for it on the site. 
 
 “Toilet paper rolls?” You get photos of delicate wall sculptures, wedding favor packages, seedling pots and adorable owls made from them. 
 
 “Tree frog?” Cute froggy pictures, a tree frog bento lunch, a knitting project and a full set of women’s toenails delicately painted with tree frog pictures. 
 
 “Bottle caps?” Necklaces, purses and wall hangings. 
 
 “Footballs?” Truffles, eclairs and deviled eggs, of course. 
 
 “Kitty litter?” The kitty litter cake (gross). 
 
 “Blizzard?” Romantic photos of snowflakes falling. 
 
 “Motor oil?” Vases. 
 
 I finally stumped it with “dipping tobacco” and “jock straps.” 
 
 Pinterest revolves around the idealistic, stylized catalogue scenes and magazine photos I have worked hard to ban from my life because they inevitably leave me feeling inadequate, messy, hideous and hopeless. 
 
 It can be ridiculous enough to have spawned a few spoof sites, such as one where I can’t help but agree that the seaweed necklace project is a bit odd. 
 
 The founder, Ben Silbermann of Iowa, said he’s aiming for middle America. 
 
 “The first people to understand the website were mostly women in Des Moines, then Minneapolis, then Houston and Chicago. To this day, the Midwest and Iowa in particular are disproportionately represented given its population amongst our user base,” Silbermann told Forbes. 
 
 It’s so crafty and girly, I can almost wonder if it’s part of a sinister plot — aligned with the attack on Planned Parenthood, Girl Scouts and access to contraception — to enmesh women in yarn craft and divert them from political action. Back to the kitchen and crafting table, ladies! 
 
 Make no mistake, the site’s tentacles are long, reaching far past Iowa. Women in New York, Los Angeles and Washington are hooked, too. 
 
 When I joined, I saw that about a third of my female friends — lawyers, executives, professors, IT engineers in the District — are pinning like mad. 
 
 And I finally decided that this could be a good thing, thanks to Susan Niebur. 
 
 Niebur was a mommy blogger and astrophysicist in the District who died this month, leaving behind two small children, more than 7,000 loyal online followers and a community of grieving people. 
 
 Given a few years to live after receiving a diagnosis of a lethal form of breast cancer at 34, she blogged and parented and lived strong and big until the end. 
 
 And she pinned her hopes and dreams on Pinterest, sharing snack ideas, fashion finds and beloved books until her last days. Her page, as she made it, remains. 
 
 A hope chest of dreams and thoughts to leave behind. Maybe not so bad, after all. 
 
 Dvorak will respond to your comments about this column at noon on Tuesday at washingtonpost. 
 
 com/dvorak. You also can read previous columns there. 
 
 Read more from The Washington Post: 
 
 A suicidal veteran’s plea for help could land him in jail 
 
 For jury, Huguely video could be key 
 
 Is school meeting donor’s wishes? 
 
 Faith groups condemn vandalism 
 
 Waving bye-bye to White Flint 

 Earlier today, Mitt Romney's official Twitter account linked to his wife Ann's profile on the social network everyone is talking about, Pinterest. Ann Romney is now the most famous Mormon on Pinterest—but far from the first. Pinterest is so popular with Mormons it's practically the Utah of social networks. Why? Let's investigate. 
 
 On one level, it's not surprising that Pinterest, the social bookmarking service where users curate images by 'pinning' them with links and commentary to themed boards, is a hit with Mormons. Its first rule is "Be nice." Pinterest is the most inoffensive, white-bread place on the internet, a gated community of perfectly curated boards sprinkled with Etsy-made children's toys and food blog recipes, sheltered from the blasted racist hellscape of the rest of the web. 
 
 But Mormons are not typically thought of as early adopters of technology. Long before Pinterest became the subject of fascination and derision by the culture at large, it was the talk of the Mormon blogosphere. You may have started to see a torrent of Pinterest notifications in your Facebook timeline in the last few weeks, but way back in September 2011 a writer at the Mormon Women's blog The Exponent was talking about her "whole mess of friends who absolutely love Pinterest." (Mary Romney, Mitt's daughter-in-law, apparently joined Pinterest in September.) Among the earliest coverage by a mainstream media outlet was a post the Salt Lake City Deseret News' MormonTimes blog. 
 
 There's no traffic stats for Mormons and Pinterest, but observers both inside and outside the Church note the preponderance of Mormons on Pinterest. 
 
 "[Mormons] were a group I noticed the most in the beginning," said longtime Pinterest user Gillian Lanyon, who curates the Pinterest board I am Fascinated by Mormons. Pinterest features a page for popular images posted by users, and in the early days of Pinterest, "you would even see quotes from Church leaders (poster-style, and in beautiful typefaces of course) in the top rankings for pins," Lanyon said. (Lanyon isn't Mormon, just fascinated by them.) You can see the continuing popularity of these Mormon memes by searching Pinterest for, say, Mormon leader Dieter Uchtdorf. 
 
 "I actually found out about Pinterest a couple of months ago from my sister in-law (who is also a Mormon)," said Kae Fisher, a 25 year-old Mormon Pinterest user from Sacramento, who took the time to email with me even though her 14 month-old girl is "sick and SUPER whiney." 
 
 "After awhile, I started noticing my other Mormon friends on Facebook talking about the site and posting pictures of things that they've learned and made from Pinterest," she said. 
 
 On an ex-Mormon forum, one poster complained in September that "Mormons are taking over Pinterest" 
 
 "I don't know how to block/remove them," she wrote. "Of course, there's the obvious—post something offensive and they'll remove themselves—but I don't want it to get back to my mother." 
 
 One reason for Pinterest's Mormon base is simply demographic. Pinterest's demographic sweet spot is young new mothers, which includes a lot of Mormon women, as they get pregnant early and often. Mommy bloggers blew up Pinterest like early Pitchfork blew up the Arcade Fire, and a number of powerhouse mommy blogs, like Taza and Husband, are run by Mormons. (They're also big on Pinterest). 
 
 The focus on homemaking means Mormon women are also more inclined to pursing crafts and cooking, two of the more popular topics on Pinterest. One of Ann Romney's first boards includes recipes of low-fat turkey burgers and a "Gluten-free desert pizza" that looks too gross to post on the internet, much less eat. Kae Fisher cites her involvement in the Mormon women's organization the Relief Society as teaching her the skills she uses Pinterest to foster. 
 
 "I know of so many women who are so talented in areas such as sewing, knitting, scrapbooking, baking., etc. largely due to this program," she said. "The creative side of me came from learning from others in this program. Pinterest is like the head websites the Mormons turn to for creativity, I think." 
 
 But there's also a cultural drive among Mormons to cultivate and share an image of domestic bliss—and Pinterest is the perfect packaging vehicle for that aim. Pinterest traffics in that relentless, almost eerie perfection that has made Mormon Mommy blogs popular even among non-Mormons, and Mitt Romney barely popular with Republicans. Mitt Romney's daughter-in-law, Mary, had one such blog, until she took it down today amid media attention. 
 
 "I think what we're thinking is that our whole dogma is called the Plan of Happiness, and our blogs kind of reflect that drive and appeal to happiness," Mormon mommy blogger Courtney Kendrick told BuzzFeed earlier today. Mormons have taken to social media to share their happiness with special zeal; there's a whole page dedicated to "Sharing the Gospel Online" on the Church of Latter-Day-Saint's site. 
 
 But Mormons have not embraced Pinterest whole-heartedly. Even the small bits of the web's incivility that seep in trouble some of them. Back in September, when Pinterest was probably even nicer than it is today, the Exponent blogger was disturbed by the "slut-shaming, body-hate and other symptoms of misogyny" she saw there. "Sure there isn't a *ton* of this sort of negative content, but I find myself continually surprised at it's prevalence," she wrote. 
 
 The Mormon writer and Pinterest fan Rosalynde Welch, in what is the best piece of writing about Pinterest I've read, warns of the sins of Pinterest: 
 
 Self-fashioning in full view of others, free from the constraints that discipline our desires in the real world, can become an exercise in prideful status-seeking. A recipe for oreo-wrapped-in-cookie-dough-covered-in-brownie-batter may be a crime against good taste and cardiovascularity, but my mocking re-pin is the sin. The Pinterest-self is a self on display, not a self in relation, and therein lies the vice. Therein, too, lies insecurity and crippling anxiety, because an identity based entirely on the display of images—actual images or metaphorical "image"—is inherently fragile, vulnerable to attack from every corner. 
 
 An identity based entirely on image? Yep: Mitt Romney is the unofficial Pinterest candidate. 
 
 Image by Jim Cooke.
– Mitt Romney's wife has signed up for up-and-coming social network Pinterest, dubbed "digital crack for women" by the Washington Post. Users of the site add photos to "virtual pinboards," and Ann Romney's page currently has seven, including recipes, campaign photos, and patriotic pics, the Post notes. The digital director for Mitt's campaign says Ann Romney is doing the pinning herself, with some help from family members. Pinterest's popularity is surging, not least because the ability to create a "virtual hope chest" makes it particularly appealing to women, according to self-confessed Pinterest addict Petula Dvorak at the Post. Gawker's Adrian Chen points to another reason why the site appeals to Romney: Pinterest's focus on homemaking and its air of "relentless, almost eerie perfection" has made it "so popular with Mormons that it's practically the Utah of social networks," he writes. Romney is the first campaign wife to promote her Pinterest page. Callista Gingrich and Michelle Obama are both on Twitter. Ann Romney also has a Facebook page.