I've often wondered about the tacit contract friends make with one another when they realize they've become friends. It's not like marriage, where at some point the couple recognizes that the relationship has become a thing, a thing with legal and tax implications, and the loving couple chooses to make their vows public with a declaration of their love. In a traditional wedding the couple actually asks for a kind of endorsement from friends and family, and support from the community. But friends have no such public recognition, there is never any kind of public acknowledgement, it's purely personal, often understated, and yet friendships are certainly more influential than most marriages.
In the Facebook age we now have a dynamic instrument to show the rest of the world how many friends we have, and how everyone is connected. Facebook is a kind electronic contract with friends, add them at any time, and then take them away any time. It's a simple divorce, with no costs or associated embarrassments. How many of us have discovered we’d been stripped of our friendship credentials on FB without notice. It's a lowly feeling being outcast, dismissed and discharged from the electronic commons, without so much as a comment.
Facebook has little to do with real friendship. The OED defines Friend as "One joined to another in mutual benevolence and intimacy." I don't believe that would apply to most of the people, many of them nearly strangers, that are counted as "friends" on my page.
In the past if we wanted to cultivate our friendships, we had to do something like write a letter, make a phone call, have coffee or tea or take a walk with them, to put forth some manner of effort. Friendship, after all, requires something from us because it's intimate, and we actually need be there at some point, to be a good friend. But now, text and FB'ing has replaced a great deal of our personal contact and communication, and none of it intimate. Sure, we may read a "news feed" from our friends, but there isn't any context to the writing, it’s impersonal at best, no contact necessary and virtually no effort required.
I also find that I don't miss some friends the way I used to because I track their updates, see their pictures,know who they are associating with and where they are traveling. When I do see them, there is less sense of anticipation for catching up because, it seems, because I already know what they’ve been doing. The obvious upside is that I do know what people have been doing and so there is less a chance I might miss the important events that are the measure of good life friends.
How many friends one has on their FB page is a kind of measure of popularity, or worth. If you have thousands, or tens of thousands, it’s impressive, and it’s something you could actually monetize. It gives you bragging rights! The poor people with lowly numbers, or no Facebook page at all, are seen as stuck in the dark ages, cave dwellers with no community. It’s all good if your marketing a product, but then, those people who are your "fans" and your "friends" really aren't "friends" after all.
This morning my Facebook page says I have 769 "friends". What a crock of shit. I have about 30, and of those only about 15 are close to me, and of those 15, about 7 know everything about my life. That seems to be a good number...at least for me, I can call all of them in a matter of minutes.
Elbert Hubbard once said "A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same."
Though I've been an imperfect friend at times, impatient, unavailable and distracted, my friends are more important than my career, more vital to my happiness than stuff I can buy, and are necessary for a life of quality. I don't believe friendships are always easy, and sometimes friends do drift a part. But the reward of effort is that flesh and blood friendships beat Facebook counts anytime, day or night, and they’ll be there even when the power goes out, or you lose your connection. Flesh and blood friends are present, they are accounted for, and we can depend on them. After all, it’s better to have friends that matter and that will be here tomorrow and beyond, not just ones that can be monetized or dismissed.
In the Facebook age we now have a dynamic instrument to show the rest of the world how many friends we have, and how everyone is connected. Facebook is a kind electronic contract with friends, add them at any time, and then take them away any time. It's a simple divorce, with no costs or associated embarrassments. How many of us have discovered we’d been stripped of our friendship credentials on FB without notice. It's a lowly feeling being outcast, dismissed and discharged from the electronic commons, without so much as a comment.
Facebook has little to do with real friendship. The OED defines Friend as "One joined to another in mutual benevolence and intimacy." I don't believe that would apply to most of the people, many of them nearly strangers, that are counted as "friends" on my page.
In the past if we wanted to cultivate our friendships, we had to do something like write a letter, make a phone call, have coffee or tea or take a walk with them, to put forth some manner of effort. Friendship, after all, requires something from us because it's intimate, and we actually need be there at some point, to be a good friend. But now, text and FB'ing has replaced a great deal of our personal contact and communication, and none of it intimate. Sure, we may read a "news feed" from our friends, but there isn't any context to the writing, it’s impersonal at best, no contact necessary and virtually no effort required.
I also find that I don't miss some friends the way I used to because I track their updates, see their pictures,know who they are associating with and where they are traveling. When I do see them, there is less sense of anticipation for catching up because, it seems, because I already know what they’ve been doing. The obvious upside is that I do know what people have been doing and so there is less a chance I might miss the important events that are the measure of good life friends.
How many friends one has on their FB page is a kind of measure of popularity, or worth. If you have thousands, or tens of thousands, it’s impressive, and it’s something you could actually monetize. It gives you bragging rights! The poor people with lowly numbers, or no Facebook page at all, are seen as stuck in the dark ages, cave dwellers with no community. It’s all good if your marketing a product, but then, those people who are your "fans" and your "friends" really aren't "friends" after all.
This morning my Facebook page says I have 769 "friends". What a crock of shit. I have about 30, and of those only about 15 are close to me, and of those 15, about 7 know everything about my life. That seems to be a good number...at least for me, I can call all of them in a matter of minutes.
Elbert Hubbard once said "A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same."
Though I've been an imperfect friend at times, impatient, unavailable and distracted, my friends are more important than my career, more vital to my happiness than stuff I can buy, and are necessary for a life of quality. I don't believe friendships are always easy, and sometimes friends do drift a part. But the reward of effort is that flesh and blood friendships beat Facebook counts anytime, day or night, and they’ll be there even when the power goes out, or you lose your connection. Flesh and blood friends are present, they are accounted for, and we can depend on them. After all, it’s better to have friends that matter and that will be here tomorrow and beyond, not just ones that can be monetized or dismissed.
This really struck home with. I have been "blocked" or deleted as a FB friend. But, not by a warm, red blooded being instead by a picture on a computer screen that probably is years old and a padded embellished profile that tells me nothing of substance about that person. It is so impersonal, my friends are the ones who have always been there for me, and me for them. I can pick up the phone, not the keyboard, or drive to their homes and know that I will always be greeted with affection and concern. I prefer an old fashioned card sent by snail mail to a electronically generated one I don't even care if it arrives late for the occassion. It just affirms the fact that there are people like me who prefer the old fashioned touch. Someone actually made the effort to pick out something that meant something to them and me.
Posted by: Susan Beste | June 28, 2010 at 02:35 PM