Even in the future nothing works

I’ve been flirting with expanding my virtual presence. I can hardly get motivated to maintain my real friendships, so I wonder how successful I would be at maintaining virtual ones. Given my past experience, the one where I don’t respond to friend requests or emails (not maliciously), I don’t know if social networking is for me. Goodreads, librarything, and linkedin are the only ones I look at regularly. Considering that I update linkedin for my job, the only other sites I maintain are book sites. Does that mean I like books more than people? Probably.

What is the real benefit of social networking?