Friendship in the virtual world

Social networking sites can be fantastic for getting in touch with old friends, organising events and inviting people to them and letting your friends know what is happening in your life. The trouble is, there is a tendency to just read people’s updates and fool ourselves that this is “staying in touch” even though we are not actually directly communicating with the other person. Instead of having a conversation, we just post the occasional comment. The danger is that if we spend too much time online focusing on virtual friendships, we can miss out on the beauty of real ones.