Friend, Acquaintance or Both?
Years before the advent of the internet, friendships were a very personal thing that usually took much time to form and were usually long lasting. In today’s world, that is the world of Web 2.0, the term ‘friend’ has come to oftentimes be defined as what one would consider an acquaintance when social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter did not exist. There is no question that the average ‘connected’ person enjoys more social interaction today in the digital world than in the more concrete world of yesterday, but the quality of this interaction has oftentimes been criticized. This was evidenced in 2006 when Time Magazine selected ‘You’ as person of the year. Obviously, ‘You’ does not exist as a single person, but rather a ‘collective’ of people working together on the internet to contribute to the ‘new’ social side of the World Wide Web, Web 2.0.
Frequently, people add someone as a ‘friend’ on social networking sites such as Facebook after having met the person only once at an event. While it is true that many true friendships have formed from the use of such social networking platforms, many of these ‘friends’ are never met in the real world again. This act of ‘friending,’ as it is called on the internet, has been said to ‘cheapen’ true friendship. Indeed, many individuals with low self esteem enjoy having high friend counts to gain a sense of popularity in the digital world.
The controversial side to all of this is when professionals engage in online ‘friendships’ with their clients. This is oftentimes a breach of the professional’s oath to always remain professional. Many consider this type of interaction to be inappropriate, yet there are many young professionals and clients who consider it no different from friending some stranger they just met at a party and will probably never meet again. In essense, Facebook and other social networking friendships represent the possibility of someone being a ‘true’ friend, however it usually guarantees that the person is at least an acquaintance of some sort. So perhaps you can still think of your five hundred ‘friends’ on Facebook as such, as the jury is still out as to whether or not they are truly ‘friends,’ ‘acquaintances,’ or both.
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This article was written after reading and reflecting upon Neil Seeman’s article, ‘Facebook dumbing friendships down?’ in the National Post and Lev Grossman’s, ‘Time’s Person of the Year: You’ in Time Magazine.
I realized a couple of days ago that i have about 700 “friends” on facebook. i talk to maybe 150 of them frequently. how did this happened? either way… I love reading about them and their obsessive facebook disorders.
I think, when you have that many Facebook friends, you get to know how important real friends are. Friends, who are also have a real life. I use my friends list on Facebook more like a adress book. If you meet someone and you want to remember him, you add him as a friend … probably someday you might need something of him or he/she of you. It’s easier to get in contact with a person again.
It is amazing how the whole World Wide Web has change through out the years! You give a good view how that have happened.