Social Networking - Good or bad?

An article on the Guardian web site caught my eye today. In it Julia Neuberger questions the value of spending so much time on the web (of course the irony of blogging about this is not lost on me!) and suggests that we would be better off spending time with people face to face.

As a "good" Anglican I want to argue a place for both. Yes it would be better to spend time face to face, however, this is not as possible when friends are spread geographically and when they are living busy lives. Perhaps there is a nostalgia for a time when people didn't work such long hours, but I am not sure it existed. I made some comment about this to someone whose husband had been a solicitor in the 60s and he seemed to have worked longer hours than I was working at the time.

There is also the issue of how well you can get to know someone. For example my Bishop blogs, and because of that I feel that I know him better than I otherwise would. Arguing that it would be better to spend more time with him face to face is all very well, but with over 100 clergy in his care there would be much less time to do anything else.