I think your final statement is demonstratably false. There are many more ways to discuss things and to promote your interests/views. That is sort of the whole

I think your final statement is demonstratably false. There are many more ways to discuss things and to promote your interests/views. That is sort of the whole reason crowd funding and the like came about and function. There is much greater interconnection between any given individual than I think you care to admit. Yes the vast majority of social networking is pretty vapid... But to use even a ridiculous example of such, like the Kony memes of 2012, you can see what I'm talking about. The meme became a joke, but brought a lot of attention to something that likely would have just disappeared, or never even have entered the 'public' consciousness otherwise. The Travyon Martin situation (regardless of your stance on it), also became a much larger issue than it likely would have without endless tweets, shares, jokes, memes, etc.