Agreement. My "college friends" have all but disconnected, even though we are still nominally linked via Facebook(which arrived on campus around our second year). We've all ended up going in mostly unrelated directions. In the meantime, the internet has done unimaginable things for both my career and social life.
For help and research, there are online references, online discussions, online correspondence...even if it's all "informal" and done in an IRC channel or something, it's all out there and you can, potentially, spend 24 hours a day immersed in a subject.
And in making more connections, there's an odd feedback loop between the local gatherings and the online stuff. It can start at either end, but the two complement each other well by presenting different situations.
For help and research, there are online references, online discussions, online correspondence...even if it's all "informal" and done in an IRC channel or something, it's all out there and you can, potentially, spend 24 hours a day immersed in a subject.
And in making more connections, there's an odd feedback loop between the local gatherings and the online stuff. It can start at either end, but the two complement each other well by presenting different situations.