[mousepod]

What a fantastic thread!

Pre-internet, I traveled in a few large and casual social circles (living in NYC makes it easy to do that) but had very few close friends. Once social networking became popular via the web, I tended to linger on the outside - I was either too busy or just didn't see the point. My reluctance to join my fellow generation x-ers in the grand social experiment pinned me as a lurker, a term that's unnecessarily pejorative. Once I moved to San Francisco in 1996, I found that my vast social circles were gone, and while I was able to make one or two close friends, there was a noticeable void in my social life. The void remained for the better part of a decade, until I was invited to join the party at LoT. I think that the unique qualities of the group here so eloquently described by CP above are the reason that I stay. I plan to be living in Southern California in the next few months, and my hope is that I'll be able to maintain my internet friendships in a face-to-face real life setting.

I think that idea that social networking through the internet alone via MySpace and the like is so widespread is probably fallacious. In my own case, it filled a need that was created by my own social expectations based on my personal history. I sincerely doubt that technology, particularly the internet, is bringing about a massive shift in social mechanics the same way it's affecting things like commerce and privacy.