Phil, I really enjoy Technometria, and generally agree with the points of view you have expressed.

However, in this case, I'm not sure that the water skiing analogy really fits. The author of the article was making a general comment on the overwhelming apparent frivolity of Twitter and the other stuff that's out there. I've got to admit I generally agree with him: most of the volume is pretty vacuous. That's not to say that Twitter et al can't be usefully employed... it's just that mostly they're not.

Virtual communities are a great way of getting like-minded people together, where otherwise physical separation would mean they'd probably rarely--if ever--meet. They allow collaboration in projects for both fun and profit, and the sharing of experience and knowledge. It's truly fantastic. The potential is vast, but it appears severely underutilised, as most people seem to just waste their time on-line.

I guess I can see things from the point of view of the reporter, in terms of realising that so much of what we encounter on-line is just noise. Finding the signal is hard, though you strike gold when you do find like minds.

I suspect the social networking world just reflects how people behave in real life. It certainly doesn't make it inherently bad. Maybe it just means that most people don't do much with their lives, and in the Western world this is made only too easy.

I'd just suggest that you not write the guy off as talking about what he hasn't experienced, and therefore doesn't understand; his commentary is more against all of us wasting time on-line, rather than a Luddite fear/dislike of technology.