This is certainly true, although I've seen it fall into one of two failure modes.

1) Both parties follow this strategy very conscientiously, with the result that one person asks about the other's life, is generally interested, but receives no detailed answer because the other thinks it's impolite to talk about themselves too much. (Of course, this lack of an answer can also just be a sign that this level of interaction is simply not desired, but that's not what I'm talking about.)

2) People overestimate the interest you actually have in them and grow more attached to you than you'd like.

Neither of these failure modes strikes me as particularly worrisome, though. 1) is probably very, very rare, and 2) is, if it even is a failure mode, easy to fix.