Convergence Feeding Social Network Obsession

A few months ago, Facebook had an internal error and crashed. While this could have been a big deal if it was down indefinitely, the website was only down for roughly two hours. Yet if you had gone online during this brief time period, the internet would have had you believe the world had ended. From frantic twitter posts of users terrified of their Farmville crops dying to the BBC releasing an article, it seemed that online society itself had collapsed.

This event clearly highlighted many people's dependence on social networking, and the extent that it has permeated our culture. Phones are sold based on Facebook and Myspace apps, video game consoles have become 'black boxes' of media, allowing users to post their in game achievements from their console over the web. Even televisions, a piece of hardware for displaying video feeds from other pieces of technology, are trying to pitch their products by their abilities to connect to youtube and twitter. Clearly to the masses social networking has become such an important part of society that attaching it to just about any object makes it more desirable.

My question is what do you think of this trend? Is social networking a generational fad? Is it something to be concerned about or something to be embraced? Is it empowering for an individual to be in constant management of their online persona or is it a crippling chain that distracts one from living life? Do we really need our TVs to be tweeting what shows we're watching?