The Myth of Facebook Friendships
I thank God for Facebook, and Twitter. Online social networking platforms are one of the best things to ever happen to the internet. Only a fool would see only the negative side of social media and none of the positives. I met and made some of my very good friends on social media. Sadly, I have also lost many good friends on social media.
First, the friends I made on Facebook. Some, it was a comment they posted on a Status Update that caught my attention. I liked their thinking. I identified with it, and that prompted me to get to know them better. So I went to their profile and clicked on "Add Friend". I know that there are some people that approached me under similar circumstances.
However, being "Facebook" friends is not what I am referring to when I say they became through Facebook. What I mean is that Facebook was the initial contact point. Eventually, we became "actual" friends. We exchanged phone numbers and called each other up. We met in person, shared lives, met each other's friends and family in real life.
Someone may chose to describe this as "moving your friendship beyond Facebook." But I disagree, I choose to see it as moving from Facebook to friendship. If we had only stayed in contact on Facebook, I would not have described this as "actual" friendship. Which brings me to the friends I lost on social media.
These were people I knew in real life, before Facebook. They are the people I added as friends on Facebook because I knew them. We didn't need to "get to know each" other. We didn't need to have private conversations on each other's walls because we already had each other's phone numbers. And in the few times we would use Facebook messaging, it was out of convenience and not because Facebook was our primary point of contact.
Now, I say that I lost some of these friends on Facebook because our friendship moved from real life and became a purely "Facebook friendship." There are many reasons behind this. For some, we simply graduated from college and ended up in different towns. For others, our different career paths were designed not to cross. Others moved to different neighborhoods. So the only point of contact became Facebook.
And while we may still be in touch, I do not consider many of these friendships as actual friendships. They may have began as such, but they are no longer the same. Yes, it is possible to reverse the pattern and move from friends to acquaintances.
One of the challenges of online friendships is that we encounter the lives of our "friends" in highlights and sound-bytes. We meet them in carefully crafted doses. We know only what they choose to reveal, whether it is true or false. We encounter the painstakingly selected and edited parts of their lives. We learn about each other in the mess and muddle of "doing life."
In real life, we cannot edit out the embarrassing moments, and we don't always have to announce what is happening in our lives because our friends are there to witness and sometimes experience it with us. But this is not the case in online friendships, unless, maybe, if you have a live video feed of the person's life.
So what does this mean? Well, for starters, this is not an indictment of online friendships, but a call to carefully consider some of these differences. They are key. We cannot make wise/accurate judgments and offer relevant advise to online friends. We cannot really "be there" for our friends by sending them quick, encouraging texts and smileys. We should not ignore context just because Mark Zuckerberg decided to call this "friendship".
Apart from being a mere communication channel and outlet, Facebook is, at best, a supplement to real friendship. It is not an alternative friendship. This is not a neighborhood. It is not a true community or an actual society. It may bear names such as "society" and "community", but it is grossly inadequate.
For this reason, we must be stewards of our online relationships. Unlike real life where some circumstances are beyond our control (such a geographical location and pedigree and financial status), our online activities are under our control. If possible, as long as it depends on you, go the extra mile in your friendships. Cross the web and actually "do life" with the people you call "online" friends. I'm trying to.
~~~
Ngare
However, being "Facebook" friends is not what I am referring to when I say they became through Facebook. What I mean is that Facebook was the initial contact point. Eventually, we became "actual" friends. We exchanged phone numbers and called each other up. We met in person, shared lives, met each other's friends and family in real life.
Someone may chose to describe this as "moving your friendship beyond Facebook." But I disagree, I choose to see it as moving from Facebook to friendship. If we had only stayed in contact on Facebook, I would not have described this as "actual" friendship. Which brings me to the friends I lost on social media.
These were people I knew in real life, before Facebook. They are the people I added as friends on Facebook because I knew them. We didn't need to "get to know each" other. We didn't need to have private conversations on each other's walls because we already had each other's phone numbers. And in the few times we would use Facebook messaging, it was out of convenience and not because Facebook was our primary point of contact.
Now, I say that I lost some of these friends on Facebook because our friendship moved from real life and became a purely "Facebook friendship." There are many reasons behind this. For some, we simply graduated from college and ended up in different towns. For others, our different career paths were designed not to cross. Others moved to different neighborhoods. So the only point of contact became Facebook.
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| Photo courtesy: financefox.ca |
One of the challenges of online friendships is that we encounter the lives of our "friends" in highlights and sound-bytes. We meet them in carefully crafted doses. We know only what they choose to reveal, whether it is true or false. We encounter the painstakingly selected and edited parts of their lives. We learn about each other in the mess and muddle of "doing life."
In real life, we cannot edit out the embarrassing moments, and we don't always have to announce what is happening in our lives because our friends are there to witness and sometimes experience it with us. But this is not the case in online friendships, unless, maybe, if you have a live video feed of the person's life.
So what does this mean? Well, for starters, this is not an indictment of online friendships, but a call to carefully consider some of these differences. They are key. We cannot make wise/accurate judgments and offer relevant advise to online friends. We cannot really "be there" for our friends by sending them quick, encouraging texts and smileys. We should not ignore context just because Mark Zuckerberg decided to call this "friendship".
Apart from being a mere communication channel and outlet, Facebook is, at best, a supplement to real friendship. It is not an alternative friendship. This is not a neighborhood. It is not a true community or an actual society. It may bear names such as "society" and "community", but it is grossly inadequate.
For this reason, we must be stewards of our online relationships. Unlike real life where some circumstances are beyond our control (such a geographical location and pedigree and financial status), our online activities are under our control. If possible, as long as it depends on you, go the extra mile in your friendships. Cross the web and actually "do life" with the people you call "online" friends. I'm trying to.
~~~
Ngare
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