I'd say it depends on the types of social networking, the author of the article talked about very shallow networking (people you met at a meetup, stack overflow, etc.). That's different than building deeper relationships with co-workers. I've found that the two are not necessarily correlated and people who go for numbers will often sacrifice depth. I've seen this on LinkedIn with juniors who I'd never met that randomly connect with me (often bootcampers) and I can see that they've done the same with hundreds of others in the field (they never message me if I accept).
Good point, those are definitely different types of relationships. I agree completely that the shallow networking is a waste of time for everyone involved.
