More unnatural than phones? Or letters? Or TV? There are a lot of different ways to communicate other than face to face. Yeah, people act differently online (I do sometimes, trying not to), but there are some benefits. I've met people from other countries and learned a lot of things that I wouldn't have just in school and staying in little ole California. Connecting people is a good thing in the end, I think.
Absolutely. Options are good for people. Other than the friends I have in the racing community, 80% of my friends are on-line, the other 20% for the most part I haven't seen in a long time for various reasons after leaving school. If you find that sad then that's fine. I'm happy with it. Fact is, the world is becoming increasingly web dependent and long-distance. You have more and more relationships initially developing online (the internet has been my primary means of meeting specific people from the racing world, first by email or message board then on to phone or straight to face to face meets, but I'd still say the majority of my meets are spontaneous face to face conversations at the track). What with SMS and AIM messaging being so popular, it's easy to see why this is.