Modern communities

What's with people nowadays finding the need to connect to their friends using online tools and communities? I myself am part of a few online communities and have recently decided to join 3gb community www.3gb.biz . There are a lot ways to share my life with previous acquaintances, old friends and family and I like sharing my photo albums with them, and occasionally engage in long, meaningful chats with them. However way one chooses to connect with people, I think the more modern our society gets, the less time people have for real relationship. Thus, the need to still be able to connect even just through the internet. Human nature, I suppose dictates us as social beings. One can never replace real life conversation, but internet communication is still better than no communication at all.