An initial attempt

Never really bothered with any of this before, but considering the sheer number of people trying it, why not? Bear with me for a stream of minutiae for a while at any rate. My current reason for musing has come from relatively recently being pulled into the world of facebook - by my 77 year old aunt of all people - and the sheer number of people I have managed to re-acquaint myself with in the past few days, some of whom I haven't actually seen since the eighties. How much has the internet changed our viewpoints on everything? I remember having penpals twenty odd years  ago - remember how they used to be advertised in music magazines? - but this is much weirder and obviously instant. Not only can we all now communicate with those we have some tenuous link with in our social lives, but we can now re-find old friends easily and communicate instantly. So much is obvious. The bit I can't quite decide upon is which I consider more important, those I have had physical contact with, even if not for decades, or those I communicate regularly with but have never properly met?
I moved to my current location (Holland) about 3 years ago, and have only been back to the old country about once a year since. I haven't really made one friend outside of my work colleagues since arriving here, only a few minor acquaintances down the pub, etc. This is hugely due to the fact I have almost as much contact with old friends now as I did before moving, in fact with getting visitors over here I have seen some people more than I have in years. How healthy is it to only have friends at a remove? Long distance romantic entanglements have always been a strain to maintain, how much more difficult is to keep a friendship going, or is it easier due to less need for physical contact? I have regular discourse with people I haven't seen for years and consider to be good friends, and I would have difficulty recognising them if I walked past them in the street.
For certain sections of the populace, are all the lingering traces of community spirit going to disappear? We worry about social cohesion, how do you cope with immigrants from any part of the world who have no need to integrate with the country they inhabit?