Constructing Realities

I was thinking about this idea of expressing 'micro-thoughts,' via Plurk, as well as the super organism concept, and it led me to think about the effect of this new wave of Internet based communication that is becoming more popular each day. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and now Plurk allow us to become connected to anyone as long as we are properly equipped with anything as simple as a home laptop or iPhone. The other day in class, Low explained Plurking, and seemed excited at having friends whose only connections were a common interest in each other's 140 character Plurks. These sorts of friendships are becoming more and more common in our world today. Anyone with Internet access can have a best friend whose face they've never seen, and who could, for all intents and purposes, could be a computer program. Perhaps its because I've never been at the forefront of popular technology that I find the inherent artificiality in this burgeoning culture slightly uncomfortable.
I find that more and more, we as a society are learning how to escape the tangible world with increasing ease, in order to enter our self-constructed life. A walk to the grocery store can become almost non-existent with an iPod and headphones, and the problem of a lonely afternoon becomes solved by simply logging on to Facebook.
Awhile back, I was eating dinner with a group of friends in a restaurant, and one of our party was being rather obnoxious and disturbing other diners. As I tried to tell her to calm down she became mad, but rather than respond to me directly, she got on her phone, hunched back in her chair, and began telling someone who wasn't even there her own version of what was happening at that moment. This girl had effectively left the real world and was in the process of manufacturing her own reality in the telling of it to her absent friend. With today's technology we can all do this. What used to require years of practice in Eastern meditation can now be accomplished by anyone who possesses an iPod,phone, or computer. We can exit reality at a moments notice and return when it suits us.
I don't mean to impress upon anyone that I think this technology or the things it allows us to do are bad. I think they are cool and oftentimes amazing. However, the technology is in its infancy, and our culture, especially that of the youth, has dove in headfirst with seemingly no thought of the consequences this could have on our lives and the way we interact with one another.
My friend's ability to exit reality at a moment's notice and immediately manufacture her own version of events is an impressive feat, and something that would have been a rarity 15 years ago. Once again I do not wish to simply criticise and point at our generations technology as the end of society, but I do think we should all take a step back and look at both the good and the bad.