People always seem to ignore one of the big factors of social networking - it's better. It's not just another way to get the same thing done, it is fundamentally BETTER. When you meet someone in person, and speak with them, you are severely restricted. You can't talk to 5 other people at once. You can't talk to anyone who is not geographically close to you. You can't stop and think about your reply. You can't check the validity of something you're thinking before you say it. You can't bring other people into the conversation unless they are geographically close by.

There are many, many, many very real limitations to communication that face-to-face communication introduces. Even most of the 'advantages' that (usually older or hipster) people claim are actually disadvantages. 'You can tell more what someone is feeling'. Bullshit. We know this. When you talk to someone, you think you know what they are thinking. And you are wrong. Even the ability of decades-experienced police officers who SWEAR they can read people only perform as well as random chance. 50% of the time, when you think you know what someone is feeling or thinking, you are wrong. 50% of the time you are right, of course, but that's not much to recommend it. You are far more likely to be mislead (not necessarily intentionally!) in person. The brain has real biological limitations. Our technology is designed to help us work around these limitations. There is no grace or honor in foregoing the 'assistance' of technology any more than it is cowardice to take a vaccine.

If you want to communicate effectively with someone - do it electronically. There's a learning curve, sure, and there are certainly social considerations (like you don't want to propose marriage over SMS) but in the vast majority of situations, doing it electronically will be faster, more effective, and enable every participant to get more out of the time spent communicating.

You're using a subjective definition of "better" and waving off anyone with a different definition as being either old or a hipster. Body language, tone of voice, word emphasis, etc. is not about being able to predict what someone is thinking or feeling, but about communicating meta-text, for which the electronic stand-ins (lol, emoticons, caps, italics, etc.) are severely lacking and really quite lame. Talking to someone in person even just one time, so that you can hear their voice when you read their text adds a lot of richness to electronic communication. If electronic communication really is better in every way, as your first two paragraphs claim (pretty offensively - "Bullshit", "no grace", "cowardice", "vaccine"), then why wouldn't you want to propose marriage over SMS? In-person communication is good. Electronic communication is also good, but in different ways, and for different things. All this "BETTER" stuff is nonsense - if you have a short missive to fire off, use a text, if you haven't talked to a friend or loved one for awhile, pick up a phone or get on a plane!

Or maybe I'm just a hipster (I don't think I'm old yet...)

I don't necessarily disagree with your point (although I think you overstate it), but this part is at least partially wrong:

Even the ability of decades-experienced police officers who SWEAR they can read people only perform as well as random chance.

Some people (perhaps 0.25% of the population) can do significantly better than chance. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_Project

But it relies on an internet which the station very well may not even have. Plus, the feature set of Facebook at the time was a lot smaller--no news feed, no status updates, not even photo uploading and sharing to start with. It very well may have been filled by the ship/station's crew manifest.

Yeah, but Facebook was a way different beast during the timeframe in which you are referring to.