This is the kind of non-reflective stuff I love from social scientists - in the context of worrying about the rise of texting/IM/etc as a communications default amongst kids:

What she and many others who work with children see are exchanges that are more superficial and more public than in the past. “When we were younger we would be on the phone for hours at a time with one person,” said Ms. Evans. Today instant messages are often group chats. And, she said, “Facebook is not a conversation.”

If you jumped into the wayback machine to the 70's, there were plenty of people worried about the impersonal nature of phone conversations, and how it "just couldn't replace" face to face conversations. I suspect that this current worry is part of the ever present worry on the part of adults that the next generation is somehow being ruined by technology.