While I’m a big fan of the social networking revolution and the endless stream of information telling me what my friends are eating, watching, doing, playing, thinking, and wearing, the new service announced today by Lunchster definitely has me scratching my head as to whether this whole social networking thing may be going a bit too far.

The idea is a pretty simple one.  You and your friends or colleagues sign up for the free service, listing what foods you like and when you have free time.  It then schedules via Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, or other iCal standard based calendar a lunch time and location at which you and your friend meet.  It’s meant to encourage people that normally wouldn’t initiate scheduling lunch with a friend to do so, thereby keeping them in actual human to human contact.

While the idea seems good, I’m not sure how I’d feel if the only way a quote-unquote friend wanted to see me was via the mindless scheduling of an automated computer algorithm.  I mean, if my “friend” really wanted to go to lunch with me in the first place, he/she could call, email, text, message me on Facebook or Twitter, or ask me in person, amongst other ways.  Any of those is infinitely more personal and thus meaningful than an essentially random computer generated meeting whereby we both just so happened to have been selected for a lunch together.  Frankly, the whole idea is kind of insulting.