Do Online Social Networks Give UsThe Illusion of Staying in Touch?

I went to a barbecue yesterday that turned into a mini-reunion with some friends from high school. While there, I realized that I hadn't seen or even exchanged a single kilobyte of communication with some of them for years. Naturally, I am closer with some than with others, but I would consider them all to be my friends. Despite a lack of purposeful communication with some of these folks, thanks to the magic/voyeurism/intrusion (depending on your p.o.v.) of facebook, I had at least some idea of what they had been up to since were last in touch. Now it's great that through social networking sites (SNSs) like facebook, myspace, and twitter, we can keep tabs on our friends, but we are doing so, largely without meaningful/purposeful communication. It struck me that by allowing us to passively consume constant updates on what our friends are up to, without us actively communicating with them, SNSs give us the illusion of staying in touch.

Now let's not get it twisted, SNSs are amazing tools that allow us to organize, manage and rediscover relationships (for better or worse) in a way that our parents' address books and rolodexes never could. I'm just wondering where these tools are taking us...

We are the generation that grew up with AIM. We witnessed electronic communications progress from beepers and Zach Morris phones, to cell phones and all encompassing smart phones like iPhones and Blackberrys. With the growth of the internet and the recent explosion of SNSs, we have attained unparalleled access to a variety of electronic communication mediums. We are more reachable as individuals than at any other time in history, so why are we doing less meaningful communication?

We are now digital and wireless, no longer analog and wired. Wireless means remote and mobile, whereas, Wired inherently means close and fixed. Is this an analogy for where we are headed relationally? Remote + mobile relationships versus close + fixed relationship? We have so many ways to communicate with one another, it seems like our communication itself has become more distant and diluted (read, superficial). SNSs do offer us windows into the lives of our friends -- but let us not forget that when you are at a window, you are on the outside looking in. You catch glimpses of your friends' lives as they come in and out of view. Windows also represent a tangible barrier -- in this case the LCD screens that you and I stare at everyday to learn what our friends are up to. Instead of being active participants, are we being lulled into a form of passive electronic friend surveillance? If that's the case, then we might as well implant microchips into all of our friends that feed us constant live updates of their exact geographic location, with text, photos, and streaming video, letting us know what they are doing -- how about we call it, "iTrack"?

I want to go back to the days where I had memorized the phone numbers of my close friends and I used to call them and make arrangements to see them on a regular basis. I wanna bring back play-dates, in a grown way of course, and place an emphasis on face time and phone time with my network, rather than time spent in cyberspace viewing status updates and photos. With the passing of time, "write me," became "call me." To that, we've recently added "email me," "text me," and even, "skype me." Will the new phrases be "follow my twitter feed" or "add me to your facebook newsfeed?"

Adults-in-Training, what do you think about the way we communicate these days and what it's doing to the depth of our relationships? Have SNSs brought us closer together -- or do we just appear to be so, thanks to the illusion of staying in touch?