IN the post-apocalyptic film I am Legend, Will Smith's character is the last survivor on Earth after a virus has turned mankind into cannibals. Every day at the same time he broadcasts a radio request, pleading for survivors to come and find him.

Strange thought it may seem, I sometimes think of this scene when I visit my local community centre, the Southville Centre. Here is a place where you can donate blood, sweat out a circuits class or pick up a veg box. Mums and kids eat at the café while Dads do karate. It is a focal point for information, guidance and help. There are art exhibits, craft fairs, food stalls. Always, there is the welcoming smile and friendly banter from the lovely staff.

Most importantly for me though, it's what this, and any other similar centre symbolises: a meeting place of ideas, people and events and the reassurance and togetherness this brings. It's being part of something that is bigger than yourself, your household or your immediate family. It's about human connection. Perhaps this feeling is anchored somewhere in my Greek-Cypriot heritage: the village square, the coffee shop, where life played out in public and a problem shared was a problem solved.

Some may think this notion naff or outdated. Perhaps this is because the new way of connecting is Facebook and Twitter: creating an all together different sense of "community." We cast judgement, condemn, provoke, joke, praise and tell thousands of other people what we're having for dinner, all behind closed curtains. This is connection, but at a cyber safe distance, devoid of physical contact.

There is nothing wrong with social networking sites. In fact, in the right hands they can be a powerful force for good, mobilising revolts and revolutions, like the recent Egyptian uprisings leading to the overthrow of oppressive rule. But the abiding image of those days is the thousands of people united together in Tahrir Square.

In the end, I think it depends on the type of person you are. The poet John Donne wrote: "No man is an island…I am involved in mankind," in reply to which Paul Simon famously sang, "I am a rock, I am an island." Personally, I'd prefer to wander up to the Southville Centre and say hi, rather than send one of these :-), and shake hands with someone rather than "like" them on Facebook. If the end of the world was nigh I'd like to think that the beating heart of my community was still there. I'd try and seek human connection.

And that's what Will Smith is doing. He's not sending a tweet. He just wants to meet another human being.

Paris Troy is the Heart FM breakfast show presenter