We sacrifice conversation for mere connection. Or do we?

If you are interested in the impact of the Internet and social media such as Facebook on interpersonal relationships and conversation then take a look at this article Friends Without a Personal Touch or this one The Flight From Conversation by Sherry Turkle.

And then this response by Dave Cormier Sherry Turkle -- the flight from conversation ... a response

I am more in the Dave Cormier camp than that of Sheryl Turkle even though she is a Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Her observations just do not stack up with my own. For example, she says:

Self-reflection in conversation requires trust. It's hard to do anything with 3,000 Facebook friends except connect.

Credit: The Flight From Conversation by Sherry Turkle

This in my experience is simply not true. How does the number of "friends" I have on Facebook (2,151 at the last count - yes I know many of them are not friends in the true sense - they are just connections - but that's not a problem) have any affect on the much smaller number of close friends that I have, that I do trust and can and do have real conversations with? It doesn't. In fact many of those friends I first met through the web.

Maybe some people do confuse mere connections with friends but I know many people who don't and who can enjoy and make the most of both type of relationships: close friends and loosely connected "friends".