The Face of Social Networking

Sometimes I wonder how my parents did it. For a while before they got married, they lived in different countries, only corresponding through snail mail. Eventually my father proposed to my mom in a letter and they were soon married after that.

How we have evolved (electronically) since then. Now you can write text, send email, send pics, update blogs, MySpace, and Facebook, and Digg any article all in the span of a few minutes. If you really wanted to, you could organize a birthday party, buy presents and decorations for it, and send out invitations all on the thirty minute train to work.

But, that does come with some sacrifice though. Buying those presents and decorations online eliminates contact with a human salesperson. Sending out invitations electronically removes that romantic and personal touch that actual mailbox letters embody.

What have we become? Have we succumbed to the rat race of modern career-life and reduced our human interaction time all for the sake of professional forward advancement? Perhaps we've taken granted that we will always have a warm body to talk to when we get home?

Or perhaps this is the means to a more enlightened end...a way to augment real personal relationships with the convenience of quick electronic communication. Only if we actually do that though. Don't get me wrong, I will Facebook and blog just as much as anything else, and I think it's great. We should be wary though...I think sometimes we can be in real danger of losing ourselves to Internet sexiness and perceiving it to be as good as the real thing instead of just a means to a end.