Does social networking keep people from changing and developing?

When I grew up I didn’t know anyone who used email, cell phones were rare, and social networking websites were non-existent. As a result I had no simple way to stay in touch with most people I grew up with, especially when people moved. In the past I also knew a great number of people whose phone number or address I never learned, but whom I would see regularly. Staying in touch didn’t seem to be a problem.

Contrast that with a younger generation that will probably maintain some contact with most of their friends from high school throughout their college and working years. Even if the contact is passive via a social networking site, one potentially may maintain that network forever rather than losing it with physical distance.

On the rare occasions when I meet up with friends from more than a decade ago, the retelling of stories of the past and common memories means that we often temporarily settle back into the personas and styles of those earlier years. However, these situations are the exception for me since I only occasionally see my friends from youth as is probably typical of most people my age who have moved around.

Would one be less able to change if that cohort of friends followed one through life via today’s social networking tools? If so, will the generation that grew up with Friendster, Myspace and Facebook change less over time from its youth? Will the unbreakable threads of history keep this generation from evolving?