Blogs: Just a fad or much more than that?

I remember when online blogging was most popular.  It was around middle school for me when everyone had a blogger, livejournal or xanga.  It was like the myspace or facebook or today.  People were constantly writing posts with picture and videos and waiting for people to comment back and forth on their posts.  I never realized at the time that this was a literacy and language experience.  I just figured I'd get one and start writing posts because everyone else had one.  

I remember I had this one blog that was purely dedicated to writing back and forth to one of my friends that lived in Taiwan.  This wasn't the most ideal way to send letters back and forth but it was the most convenient.  However, when writing on these public spaces, I couldn't help but still feel distance between us, even though we were in constant communication with one another.  What is it that makes these virtual writing spaces so much more impersonal than actually taking a sheet of paper and jotting down your thoughts?  To me, although I have become accustomed to doing a majority of my writing on the computer, it still feels unnatural for me to consider it an actually "writing" experience.  Is online blogging just a fad that disconnects people from the reality of language and writing?  

I know people who purposely rid themselves of public blogging spaces like myspace or facebook, because they feel they are being consumed by these so called "fads".  Would having too many of these online blogging tools actually distance us from the reality of literacy and turn us off to the idea of writing?  This is definitely something to think about...