I disagree. For those of us who use social networking more for posting updates and discussing things with each other, it has lots of social-contact value. The two benefits it provides that aren't simultaneously given by phone calls, SMS, IRC or watercooler meetups:

- broadcast but pull (not push) communication; everyone (from the group that can see a particular post) can join or leave a discussion at any time, and reading it does not require commitment to active participation

- asynchronous communication; I can drop a comment and read replies at my own schedule, and there is no expectation for immediate response

And no, you can't really disconnect it from the other side of social networking, i.e. posting cat pictures and news articles - they provide a social object, around which a discussion can form[0].

Complaining about social networks as "inferior" form of social interaction seems like complaining about potatoes as inferior food because they weren't around in Europe 500 years ago. Yes, living only on potatoes isn't the healthiest thing, but they are a decent food and even if you make it the core of your diet, you won't get sick.

[0] - http://gapingvoid.com/blog/2007/12/31/social-objects-for-beg... curiously, this text now starts with an image that wasn't there last time I read it, and that perfectly sums up my opinion on advertising

Oh, I would never say that potatoes are inferior, as that would be the same reductionist science mentality that has been making us obese and sick. In fact a social network like Facebook is nothing like the potato, but more like the Chicken McNuggets or the sweetened corn flakes or the soda made of high fructose corn syrup, or the ultra-pasteurized and low-fat milk, or the beef from corn-fed cows that need antibiotics because of liver abscesses that happen for being fed corn and animal tissue instead of grass.

Just as with fast food that depends on subsidized corn, ignorance and fossil fuels, social networks like Facebook represents the industrialization of our social interactions: fast, cheap, shallow and designed for mass consumption. And make no mistake, just like how the food demand is inelastic because our stomach doesn't grow bigger, so is our attention span as there are only 24 hours in a day, so the same strategies are employed by both sides, with Facebook being the new TV (how ironic, almost as ironic as organic food being industrialized).

And going back to the potato, we Europeans may have started eating it only 500 years ago, but the potato has been domesticated 7,000 to 10,000 years ago in South America. We simply discovered what other people have been eating for thousands of years. No such thing happened with social networks. Or with present day processed foods for that matter.

And you know, industrialized food and the modern lifestyle has been making us obese and gave us diabetes. We might also discover that this modern lifestyle is also bringing with it other gifts, like autism and I wouldn't be surprised at all if some conditions from the autistic spectrum are also caused by humans having shallower social interactions.

Yesterday I realized that it has been a long time since an old friend reached out by email to ask how I was doing. I still do, but I also don't use the most popular social media channels. I wonder if the simulation of contact provided by broadcast-style social media is enough to satiate the need to reach out and make direct contact. Perhaps I should delete my page from facebook. Despite the fact it hasn't been touched in four years it might give people the impression that they know how I am. It is easier to find me by actively searching for my name on the web. Then, even if one does this I've heard that facebook will sometimes make a stub page from media they have available to stand in. It feels like a nightmarish trap in which we train machines to supplant ourselves.

My close group of a friends always has a Facebook Messenger thread going. We went to college together but have since moved to different places all around the Midwest. We make time to see each other in person a few times a year, but the main way we keep in contact is a Facebook chat that's constantly rolling.

So it goes both ways.

Well yeah, that's a reasonable use-case, but how often does it really happen? Plus you're probably talking about a handful of friends, but what about the other 150 people or more in one's list?