There is a more general point here. There seems to be a growing assumption that activity on the internet is some how proportional to activity in real life. Yes

There is a more general point here. There seems to be a growing assumption that activity on the internet is some how proportional to activity in real life. Yes this could be a problem for programmers, but IMHO, its becoming more and more of a problem with news gathering. Issues or causes with facebook and twitter accounts get far more coverage than those with out. Basically these sites provide tittle tattle to fill the 24hr news channels. OK, cool if you happen to be in a banana republic dictatorship with internet access, but deep in Africa, your tribe can be slaughtered and no one knows.