When I lived abroad for about 13 years, my usual networks and community connections became strained and even broken. About halfway through my exile, social media appeared.
At first it seemed as if my former networks were being restored, so many assumptions were made. These included the assumption that viewing news about folks in my networks and communities on Facebook, for example would provide the same benefits and emotional / social pay-offs as our former modalities of creating connections (pre-social media).
We also assumed that the platforms were benign and a true representation of our intended strands of connectiveness. But they were instead profit-driven, data-harvesting behemoths that used algorhythms to select who saw us and who we saw in our story streams and news feed, etc.
Some of the contact via Facebook supplanted and squashed our former means of connecting, like making long distance voice calls, writing letters, and sending emails. “Seeing someone on Facebook” became a poor substitution for human contact, and we became more reclusive.
Oddly, we felt as if we were more connected, but it was a cleverly presented illusion. Eventually, the means to choose other more fulfilling or satisfying ways of connecting evaporated, and we were left in a new, modern contradiction: High quantity networks, but low quality human interactions.
Dottore Mark 
Very insightful post! Before internet access, my sister and I would connect through snail-mail letters. At that time, long-distance phone calls were more expensive. We often poured out very personal thoughts to each other. Today, we may connect more often on Facebook than we did through the mail, but the connections are less personal. We are able to phone easier and do so a couple of times a week, but I remember fondly the intimacy of those letters.
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