DURING a recent trip to London, this writer met up with a good friend and former university mate who now works and lives there. Driving around in her car, I requested her to take me to the nearest Tesco store where I could buy chocolates to bring home.

Wanting to see more choices than what the Tesco Expresses in Central London had, she took me to Weybridge area where a Tesco Extra is located. However, getting there in the late evening seemed a little confusing for my friend, who nevertheless assured me that she will not get lost with her global positioning system (GPS) on board.

And with directions given out to either turn left or right here, we soon got to our destination. Then back at her apartment for dinner, my friend quickly logs on to the Internet to see where I could buy souvenirs to take home. She even checks to see if the retailers are having any pre-winter sales.

And being the Internet-savvy person she is, she asks me if I like her new rattan sofa set she had just purchased online. Over dinner, she told me of the guy she met via an online dating network. Then she offers me to Skype home to talk to my family.

Well, all these are nothing new in the Internet age of today, but what’s obvious is that there seems less social interaction for people like her.

With a GPS system on board the car, we do away with stopping by the petrol kiosks or asking a stranger to ask for directions, by shopping online we take away a leisure activity or what’s now known as retail therapy for some people, and by meeting people online, we do away with networking physically with a whole lot more people as we would if we were attending a party.

Many studies have suggested that less social networking results in less sociable behaviour among people. This may be true for a handful of younger generation who are born in this Internet age and start their lives interfacing more with a PC than people. However, for people who didn’t grow up with computers, spending more time on the PC doesn’t necessarily make them less sociable people. Take my friend for example, although she lives alone and does most things online, it doesn’t make her a less sociable person who’s going to develop an erratic behaviour.

This person, who sometimes works from home, without any interaction with other people for a whole day, is still a sociable person looking forward to extending her network of friends there. And she certainly will – when she makes more friends online.