I agree with you and Betty. It is much easier to see people as social stepping stones in the virtual world because of the absence of the human element. I think by missing the human element, online interactions become shallow at times which lead people to seeing people as social objects rather than actual people. “Networked individualism” is necessarily selfish, but I do think in our money driven environment we tend to try our best to monetize our online space in what ever way we can.