"I'm going to commit suicide. To all of you, even those who shared the slightest friendship with me, I love you,"

This was the haunting message left on the twitter account of Lee Kye-Hwa, 27, a former disc jockey in a Seoul bar. His body was found days later hanging lifeless from a pier.
Digital social networks are overgrowing our traditional social  networks. Overgrowing and confusing the boundaries between reality and fantasy. Never in the history of the planet have there been so many people being lonely together.
Social networks like Facebook and twitter have extended the reach of the internet beyond the tech savvy, into the homes of the man on the street.
I'm wondering more and more whether these social networks are actually helping or hindering us. Are we just shifting our problems from one medium to another? Does social networking really help anyone? At best I suppose it doesn't harm anyone, other than the time spent in pseudo societies.
I reckon the world needs some altruistic alternatives in cyberspace. Moral behemoths (well less capitalist immoral behemoths) on the scale of google, Microsoft, twitter et al.
The world sucks, corrupted by the oil companies and tobacco companies and super powers out to make a buck. We are morally bankrupt. Amidst all of this people are fleeing to the safe hills of the internet. To find a peaceful spot to call their own. The cyber highlands However slowly the warm community feel of message boards, MiRC and MUD's is turning into another anonymous wasteland where people can interact superficially with more people at one time, than ever before in history.
Perhaps things are getting better or perhaps they're just getting different.