I do get a good dose of intimacy from online conversations with closes friends, and they do not even have to be in the same continent. In my country, kids in their teens (maybe even 20s) can't imagine a world without the internet (i.e. Facebook and Google). The internet is just that pervasive.
I'd really like to see a study on the effect online social networks have on our collective mental health. My gut feel is that social networks are a positive thing. I'm just happy that I will be able to maintain a certain level of intimacy with friends when I'm older and less mobile.
Just wanted to let you know that me and my friends use treehouse quite a bit. We've found it to be a really easy way to share photos with close friends, precisely because of the reasons you wrote about in the article.
Because there isn't any way to restrict the photo viewing to a specific group of friends, I've found that I only add/tell really close friends about it. As a result the quality and quantity of photo sharing goes way up in my network on Treehouse. Compare and contrast this to Facebook where I don't put up pictures at all, and any photo that tags me is zealously filtered to present the best image.
On a side note, some of my friends have complained that the app keeps crashing on iOS4. Anyway good job with Treehouse!
It just goes to highlight the vast gulf between the Apple brand and a small unknown company. Apple has shown us time and time again that its not about the idea, its all about execution. Just look at what they did with mp3 players and smart phones.
I'd really like to see a study on the effect online social networks have on our collective mental health. My gut feel is that social networks are a positive thing. I'm just happy that I will be able to maintain a certain level of intimacy with friends when I'm older and less mobile.