The world is getting smaller. With the advent of the internet, information that used to be far away and troublesome to obtain is available within a few minutes in your own home. And now, with the advent of social networks any information you need about your friends is available just by checking their blog, or their twitter page, or their facebook page, or any number of online sources for the intimate details of their life once left to their close network of friends.

There’s a bit of a paradox here. I joined facebook primarily because I wanted to catch up with old friends I don’t talk to much anymore. But for the most part, this can be done passively. I add them as friends and when I go to write on their wall, I come across a tidy aggregation of their hobbies, their interests, the music they like, the movies they like, what schools they’ve gone on to, what jobs they’ve held, and much more information. So before I even ask them how things are going, I’ve received the answer.

Beyond this, any answer to a question asked through facebook is automatically tainted with more forethought than that from a private conversation. That response can be read by anyone you’ve deemed a “friend,” a loaded phrase given the hundreds or thousands of “friends” you can amass through social networks. A facebook conversation has a very different dynamic than that of a real conversation.

Because of this, I’ve never found myself enthralled with facebook. Keeping in touch with dozens of former friends is an empty effort to me. I’d much rather cultivate the few good friendships I have in real life. Obviously, you can develop more substantial relationships through facebook, as you would in the real world, but there’s no real incentive to me. In general, friends you’ve lost touch with weren’t lasting friends. Whether it’s because you changed or they changed or you ran out of things to say to each other, friendships die for a reason. Trying to rekindle them through facebook isn’t likely to succeed.

Which I guess is why I barely ever visit facebook anymore. That initial burst of regained connections has faded away. Obviously, this depends on the person. I’m not anti-social per se, but I’m certainly not comfortable in highly social environments which is why I tend to avoid them.

So my intended use of facebook is not what most people use it for, but even excluding that facebook is not a replacement for more direct communication. Whether it’s face to face, or on the phone, or through instant messaging direct communication, that direct connection is needed for friendships to be anything more than acquaintances.