The Engineer's Notebook

No, I find it to be exactly the opposite. Using many of these sites I've reconnected with old friends and now see them face-to-face far more often.

Dittoes with Chris. Except i would say that I "interact socially" (including online) with them more often.

I have developed a number of friends around the world via answers provided and via social networking.

milo

I will not comment on this in person. Or unless you post this as a link on Facebook.

I remember reading somewhere in psychology that you were lucky if you had 5 close friends. I'd say that this is a fairly true statement if you say further within one organization, or in one town.

For example I may well have over the years on CR4 have made 5 friends.

In the town I live in and do have personal face to face interactions with people I may have 5 friends.

In the other cities and towns I've lived in, like Rochester, NY, or NYC, or Fort Lauderdale, Toronto, or Chicago, or Greensboro, NC, for the periods I lived in those places I may have developed important relationships with 5 people.

CR4 is unique as far as my online participation in that some strangers have become over time friends.

Facebook is only of late been of utility, and insofar as it has facilitated some reconnections with those friends in the other cities and towns I've lived in, I have appreciated it.

It does have the stamp of where out it arose, for face to face or shared spaces and experiences, such as "The School", or "The Family" are more required for Facebook to have utility, and be even understandable.

Frankly I don't expect to make new friends on Facebook.

(Some of that may be a choice on my part as well.)

I didn't really anticipate making any friends on CR4 but have due to having shared interests.

Few of my local friends would want to even attempt to discuss physics, and awhile back I said CR4 was everything I wanted from Ham Radio, but never got.

I don't think any of the networking sites will ever replace person to person and face to face interactions, for to a great degree they are dependent on that sort of human interaction in the first place.

However sites that have some basis arising out of common interests if only a shared interest in a TV show, like Mad Men, are more likely to produce connections.

I find my human interactions more likely to be fading due to other factors, partly age and changing interests, than social networking sites.