Robert Hampton

You can read any number of hand-wringing articles about the growth of the Internet leading to a reduction in actual face-to-face communication. This is, of course, nonsense. Most sensible Internet users (and I like to think I am one) will use Facebook, Twitter et al to complement other forms of communication, not as a replacement. In fact, I would argue that the growth of social networking sites is enriching friendships.

Take my friend Andrew, for example. He left for Australia a couple of weeks ago and will be away for a few months. In the old, pre-Internet days that would probably have been it as far as contact is concerned, except possibly for an occasional phone call; short due to the expense, inconvenient due to the time difference. However, thanks to the web, I can follow his every move on his photoblog.

Then there is Scott (aka the MerseyTart). I discovered his entertaining blog about a year ago. Anyone setting themselves the goal of visiting every Merseyrail station is already in my good books, and I said as much when I made my first tentative comment on his blog a few months back.

That comment led to Scott commenting here. Before long we were e-mailing back and forth and eventually agreed to meet up for a joint excursion onto the City Line, to “collect” a few more stations, and then retire to a hostelry for drinks.

That took place yesterday and it couldn’t have been a better day. I was going to write up my own account of the day, but frankly I couldn’t hope to improve on Scott’s version of events, so I’ll just direct you there instead (and please ignore the picture of me where I look really fat).

So, to summarise, the Internet can be great for meeting people. Just use a bit of common sense to avoid the nutters.