Social Networking - The future or a fiction?

It's all about social networking advised someone an article I read while trying to pass some time waiting to catch up with some friends (in actual real life) and I wondered what the fuss was about, I mean I have a Facebook account and thought that's what it is all about. I then forgot about it till I was listening to a music pod-cast and the presenters went on talking about how being on different social networking sites is where the future is going. Being the experiment dabbling individual I am, I went ahead and logged back into Google+ (which I had opened when they were beta testing and thought it to be very boring) and was not surprised it was just where I had left it....bare and empty, apparently like me most of my friends had not found anything appealing on it and gone back to where everyone hanged around - Facebook. The thought of the whole future being on the social media however kept me thinking and I wondered how we had drifted from actually meeting up with friends we have in real life to stalking the whole world sitting in our living rooms. Don't get me wrong I am all for Facebook (and anyone who even remotely knows me can vouch for that) inspite of all the privacy issues and what not but as a self-confessed anti-social (I really am one....seriously!) I still like meeting up with people in real life and see their faces while talking to them, shaking hands and the occasional friendly hugs to see if I am still human or if Skynet has taken over us all and we have tricked ourselves into think we are human all while there are steel chords and microchips instilled all over the insides of our bodies. Any how so on a quiet boring day off from work, I did something I had been holding off for years, I joined twitter and it was just to find out what all the fuss was, I mean it had been there for sometime now but the whole tweet thing kept chirping away and I had finally succumbed to it. It has been a couple of weeks since I have signed up and I can see what the whole thing about social media being the future is about, its about bringing in everyone and by everyone I mean everyone - the celebrities, the politicians, the activists, the philosophers all come together and share with you a part of them thus giving you a glimpse of them and probably changing (manipulating) your view of them. The one thing I found out was, that it stands as a medium for you to shout out your thoughts without anyone caring or reading it and hence it becomes an outlet similar to you screaming out loudly in the bare silent sky, all while listening to your local legislator or one of the stars you follow have a public meltdown along with you. So the next time you hear the line, "The future lies in Social Networking", let me assure you there is a pinch of truth in it, it just depends on what you would define "social" and who you would want to interact with.