Existential crisis alert: as more and more of our lives are conducted in the "unreal" world of social networking, we will increasingly start to question the nature of our "real" lives.

I think that a lot of the backlash against social networking is the product of cognitive dissonance; Specifically that Facebook so efficiently reveals our significance (or otherwise) in the wider world. Facebook is perhaps the first technology that reveals to us that the major events in our own lives are, on the macro scale, merely background noise. Learning of an old friend giving birth seems very much less significant when we learn of it not through direct communication but through a wall post that is read by 600 other "friends".

Space travel gave us the ability to see our own world from afar, revealing to us the fragility of our world and the insignificance of human existence when seen from a cosmic scale. Many astronauts describe being profoundly changed by seeing the "blue marble" for themselves.

Perhaps these vertiginous experiences, these sudden shifts in perspective will occur more frequently with the advance of technology. Perhaps the opposite will occur and with the decline in mass media we will become increasingly insular and narcissistic. Perhaps our reaction to being able to see the sum of all human life will be to shield our eyes from it. We live in interesting times.