Human-to-human interaction is becoming less cool.

The Internet continues to expand and immensely popular social tools, such as MySpace, have become substitutes for actual relationships between people.

Part of the new Internet revolution, MySpace - which passed Google in highest hits this April - has become much more than a tool. Some users partially shun real-life contact with others for the online equivalents such as blogs, message boards, instant messengers and outlets including Thefacebook and Friendster.

It's a scary trend when people stop meeting others in person and can only rely on these sites for human interaction. It's difficult to imagine how we even dated before Thefacebook. Yet it's even more frightening to think where this trend will take us in 10 years after future generations have only grown up in faceless environments.

The explosion of Internet communication has been in the news for a while, but the degree of communication taking place over the Web is staggering. According to The New York Times, 27 million members were signed up for MySpace.

Even mainstream media companies are paying attention to the trend. Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. bought MySpace in July for a reported $580 million, and it became blatantly obvious these Web-based forms of communication were another addition to the technologically-geared world

The flood of communication through these sites could become a concern if adolescents learn their social skills through the box sitting on their desk.

This isn't to say online communication should completely be banned. The Internet is a great tool for information and communications, but social activity can't be replaced by Web sites.

As long as sites such as MySpace remain supplements - not replacements - for human interaction, they're a great form of entertainment and communication. But when the only face in the room is yours, that's a problem.

Now if you'll excuse us for a moment, we need to step outside and chat with someone.