How many of us were more up to date on Louis Gray's kids' birth than his family? - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

That post is messed up. This person he's not bothering to keep in touch with is his "best friend?" Strange definition of friend. You all are interesting to track, and I hope to meet many of you one day, but there are these things called priorities. When I consider my tried and true friends on one hand and my socnet acquaintances on the other there is just. no. contest. - Jim Stanger

i find myself completely dis-connected with real life people. at times i feel closer to my online friends on twitter and other social media friends then say classmates... i feel like twitter constantly throws little balls of information that are constantly spinning in my head. floating about. sometimes i crave physical connections with people maybe lunch or star bucks.. thats the only down side to our world. - Caroline

Rings true to me. There's a depth of experience in the 'meatworld' that the socnets can't touch. I think that an hour a month can easily be much more meaningful than the constant 'light touch' of the tweet. But, the constancy and breadth of the socnets is hard to replicate IRL. What I read in the post was just a frustration that the 'best friend' was rebuffing the posters' advocacy of the online tools available to deepen their preexisting relationship. I think that's a fair and insightful point. - Madsimian

I think a lot of this is because online friends are so easy to shut off and out. No messy offline issues. Apples and oranges. Both are good in different ways. - Mark Forman

What gets my goat about this post is that Stowe is laying this issue of *his* at the feet of his so-called friends. If you feel disconnected from the people around you, fine. I mean it sucks, but ok. But don't blame those people for your breakdown. Stowe wrote it right off the bat, after weeks his friend had to contact him. The friend contacted him using the most ubiquitous long distance communication device on the planet...a phone. Nothing wrong with that. - Jim Stanger

I write all this even though most of the people I consider friends, along with family, co-workers, and most everyone else around me, don't "get" Twitter and the like. Hell, they barely know it exists. But they're people I know, love and respect in ways not possible to communicate in 140 words or 140,000 words. It's worth it to me to keep in contact with them no matter what tools they're comfortable using. And if I don't I certainly won't chalk it up to their inability to anxiously hover over Twitter. - Jim Stanger

Funny thing is most of my communication with my meat-space friends takes place online too, except that it's typically through email and Livejournal, not Twitter. - Morton Fox

I left a comment on the blog as well, except...it's moderated. From the post and the moderation it appears he's more about keeping people at arms length than mingling. So much for the "social revolution." - Jim Stanger

I wrote the article (not Stowe). It's not that I don't keep in touch with Steffen, just that I don't have a daily flow from him 'cause he's not online. That's starting to make a difference. Of course when we *do* see each other, it's deeper and more intense than Twitter contact. That's obvious. - Matt Balara

Re: Stanger's remark - We have to moderate /Message or we drown in spam. It's nothing about 'keeping people at arm's length'. - Stowe Boyd

I can so relate to this article!! Good to see others share my preference for non-face-to-face socialization. I even hate talking on the phone. Have a friend who always calls me right after I text her a simple 'yes' or 'no' question... hate that! If you have something to discuss, fine... but don't call me to ask 'what am I doing' 12 times. - Shelly Weiss

Stowe gets props for writing honestly about this, but I gotta' say I'd have to reconsider friend status with someone who referred to me as "meat"... ;-) - Sprague D

Sprague D - I've never been a fan of the phrase "meatspace". Can someone think up a better term for this? - Mike Doeff

Meativerse? Meatosphere? Series of Meat Tubes? EDIT: I just looked up the etymology on "carnival." It apparently means "leaving the meat behind" (carne + vale, as in, giving up meat for Lent), so perhaps we should start calling the interwebs a "carnival." Step right up, step right up, I've got JPEGs of Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy... - Karim

Matt and Stowe: Fair 'nough, guys. I gotta admit, that piece really rankled me yesterday. I often show people these online social tools, and their first reaction is a recoil. The impression they get is it's a bunch of introverted shut-ins with nothing better to do than chat with each other. "Don't these people have lives?" It's a fallacy that gets harder to dispute when I actually read someone saying they have better online relationships than in-person, or that they retreat into this "world." *facepalm* - Jim Stanger

@Mike, well Morpheus called it "The Desert of the Real" -- but I think I prefer "the reality-based community". - Sprague D

I think it's incumbent upon ME to remember how my friends prefer to be contacted. Some like email, some like Twitter, some like the phone, some prefer that you show up at their house. - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

Sprague, Morpheus was only a simulacrum of Baudrillard. Though I suppose this means Baudrillard was right when he said it's the territory that falls apart under the map. - Karim

@Jim read it again. That's not at all what I said. I don't have "better" online relationships than in person. Online contact expands my offline relationships. Just tonight I was out with 3 friends, and quite a lot of what we talked about was stuff we'd seen from each other in Twitter. Twitter made us aware, and meatspace (beerspace?) was where we deepened and intensified the conversation. I'm anything but a shut-in. - Matt Balara

just had to look up simulacrum. friendfeed is educational... - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

@Matt Great to hear, bud. My last comments were veering into the general...not really addressing the blog post. Augmenting offline relationships here is great. Replacing them...not so much. - Jim Stanger