Even by using social media, you are still alone in front of your computer.
Just look around you. Look at all the people who are in real world physical social situations and still spend most of their time staring at their smartphone and the stream of social updates from Twitter, from Facebook, from Email...
Staring at those screens is compelling because they are so damn social now. It's not some mythical solitary activity like playing solitaire or reading a book.
An interesting question, then, is why, when talking online, do I focus on ideas rather than people? I think a major factor is simply that plaintext is a far less expressive medium, so it takes extra effort to convey complicated subtexts. When we talk offline we can show interest in people without having to consciously think about it; our expressions of caring are primarily subconscious and therefore don't transfer well to plaintext.
Don't get me wrong, communicating on the Internet is great. But for some types of personality (and pretty much all of us to some extent) face-to-face interaction is vital.
No, you're not. Your writing a message to an online "message forum", to people who could care less about who you are, don't know how you look, don't know or care what you do or how you feel, and only want to hear very specific things from you (e.g. not straying off topic of this thread).
>Look at all the people who are in real world physical social situations and still spend most of their time staring at their smartphone and the stream of social updates from Twitter, from Facebook, from Email...
You miss that they do it _in addition_ to actually being social. Doing just the "social updates in Twitter, FB etc" thing, would be no substitute.
Any other profession now have time in front of computers. But often for dull, administrative work. Teachers correct homeworks, police officers write reports, politicians review law proposals, etc. My time in front of the computer is fun, but ssshh don't tell that too much ;)
