MySpace- Prohibiting Real Conversation

I don’t mean for this to be a forum where I complain about our merges in technology but...
For the last few months I’ve listened to my mates rave about their addictions to MySpace, how easy it is to make plans and how ‘connected’ it makes you feel. How connected can you feel through a computer screen?

Personally I haven’t fallen for likes of MySpace and face book and all the other computer networking schemes, I haven’t bothered making a homepage and I have to admit I feel quite left out of the monotonous conversations our world’s having about how addictive MySpace is. However, no matter how left out I feel I can’t see myself giving in to the temptation of having a conversation with my keyboard over a human being.

What is happening to our world? No I’m not exactly technologically savvy, and maybe my lack of interest in computers blinds me to the opportunities of computer networking, but what happened to a good old chat over a cup of coffee? Real relationships are not sustained through a computer screen, healthy social interaction requires skills- it doesn’t depend on how fancy you make your homepage.

Computers and technological communication is second nature to our generation, I’m not proposing we throw it away and step back 20 years, I’m just raising the question of excessiveness, are we forgetting how to have face to face human interaction?

The Herald Bulletin published and article by Stephen Dick, titled ‘My Space, Your Space, Our Space’. I think he really sums up this view of MySpace prohibiting real conversation and healthy social interaction. He says...
‘I see a kid typing away at his computer for hours at a time not really knowing some of the people he’s communicating with and probably never will know. When he signs off at the end of the day, he’s made a connection but it’s more theatrical than human. He’s alone when he signs on and he’s alone when he signs off’.

My question remains: Does MySpace and online networking schemes allow for a healthy free flow of information or prohibit healthy human interaction?