People's social networks do not consist only of people they see face to face. In fact, social networks have been extending because of artificial media since the printing press and the telephone.
Howard RheingoldThe industrial revolution took the father out of the home and put the kids in school. And then everyone had their own little scene.
Howard RheingoldMobile communications and pervasive computing technologies, together with social contracts that were never possible before, are already beginning to change the way people meet, mate, work, war, buy, sell, govern and create.
Howard Rheingold