Have You Updated Your Profile Today?

There’s a fantastically interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor about social networking and it raises a bunch of thought-provoking questions – which I guess we won’t get answers to until the next generation, really.

• Social networking – and really Web 2.0 in general – is by its very design narcissistic. It’s really just positioning the brand of You. (See also Time‘s Man of the Year issue.) How does this outlet for such total self-involvement change us – who we are, what we do, how we think about ourselves?
• When we can find out so much about people before we get to know them, how does that change our relationships?
• Does having so many casual friends take away from the really meaningful relationships in our lives?

It’s more new-media geekery, but I think it’s completely fascinating stuff.