He is one of my few remaining friends from high school, we had a brief thing, you know when you just look into each other's eyes but nothing ever comes of it? Yes, that kind. I am a little eager to see what it is he is saying as it has been a while since I last saw him, or even spoke with him on the phone. I hit F5 in annoyance as my Gmail takes a little too long opening, and then get redirected into my twittering Facebook where I realise to my disappointment that he is sharing a personal thought with 178 other people. He says he is feeling introspective today. Another one to the list of banal updates that keep traffic high and steady in the world of social networking websites.

A wave of something old goes over me, making me feel a little old, even uncomfortable that I am on Facebook, that I am here at two o'clock in the morning, seeking relationships with people I have increasingly nothing in common with. Even then, Roberto is one of the special ones, most of the people in my list of friends -603 and counting- are old classmates and acquaintances of friends.

I am, like most women, very keen on networks, social networks. Many of my little achievements have been in part contributed to by a global network of friends and acquaintances. Such networks are my connection to the world out there, it is how I found out about the scholarship that sent me to university and how I met my partners in a start-up magazine for women and how I met the man I may spend the rest of my life with. Increasingly also, for those of us away from home, such networks are also how we stay connected to Kenya, and to Kenyan issues. In the lonely and culturally removed Western world, such networks provide a grounding even as we make our way through this foreign world.

Networks of course are as old as society. In the old days, the mention of a common acquaintance was sufficient to get you food and a bed in a strange village. Even so, life was never before such an amorphous web, with relationships so trivial and difficult to distinguish and with boundaries often invisible or ignored. Facebook, along with MySpace, Hi5 and Beebo has served to melt all distinctions between friends, family, acquaintances, work colleagues and clients; and join them up in a seamless digital network. Within minutes of registration, one is able to pull out every last name you have on a contacts list and offer them up to you as friends.

But these are often not my friends, and I am now like many others uncomfortable both at my addiction to the service (hours spent in endless posting of messages on others' walls, poking them and telling them what mood I am on) and to the intrusion into my personal space that I feel it to be at times. Friendship everywhere takes time and effort to form, and are challenging to sustain. The result of this straining, is that we trust our friends more than we do mere acquaintances, relying on them for support and turning to them for counsel that we expect to be specific, not general.

I love my Facebook, and the little conveniences it brings me. But, I am also alive to the fact that meaningful engagement with others, in these times when social bonds are breaking is more important than ever before. As we tackle societies mounting problems, especially the terror of climate change and increasing global poverty, it will be crucial that we get away from behind our computer screens, take of our earphones and engage with the world about us. It will be a dark day when our friends and emotions are options we can pick of a menu on the internet.