Is social media a new vehicle for friendship

We have seen the ever growing popularity of social media such as Facebook and Twitter. The question I believe are on the tip of most peopl's tongue is, what constitutes friendship? Seems as though friendship is via cyberspace and there is no real human contact anymore. People are finding it extremely difficult to hold a decent conversation when they are face to face with someone.

It's a 21st century phenomena. this has never been a real issue in the last 50 years or so, so what is the problem with society these days that we all must hide behind a computer screen to communicate? I believe it is much easier to convey messages through technological devices as it without being is understandably easier to convey how one really feels simply because some of us know that we will not be discriminated for our outward appearances or the odd idosyncrasies. For the introverts of the world; this is revolutionary.
Successful communication is in itself an art form, not everybody is wired to be great communicators. This however, leads to the question of, have we as a society created a monster? I guess that would depend on the individual themselves and how they perceive the world around them. There is no mistaking however, that the world has embraced this vehicle of communicatio. What does that say about the vast majority of us? We in some ways find face to face interaction to be really awkward because we know that there is that potential to be judegd off the bat and let's face it no one really likes to be judged when people don't really know us.
It is so easy to judge but we never really stop to think about how the other person may feel. I guess that is the nature of the beast in every single one of us.
Either way we look at it, the phenomena of socail media and communication is not going to go away anytime soon and it is believed that many of us see it as part of our lives and we cannot live without this vehicle of communication.
Soon we may find that people will not even leave their front door simply because we can access everything online and over social media. We see what all our friends are doing without even being there.

Is this a good or bad thing? I guess that's up to the individual but a little human contact doesn't really hurt anyone.