Is Friendship Dying?

Reaction to the interview with Danah Boyd and William Deresiewicz on Friendship.

With social media, is friendship becoming more surface level or shallow? Are we associating the word 'friend' with acquaintances, is the line blurring, or is technology enhancing our ability to stay connected and allowing us to become more connected to people? Is Facebook causing a false sense of intimacy with people?

Digital natives are used to friendships establishing over the internet while the non natives bring a whole slew of expectations to establishing and maintaining friendships that is not always translatable in computer mediated communication. 

Are we losing face-to-face encounters and the soft social skills that come along with them? Parents are having less face time with offspring because they are plugged in to their own social media sites or on mobile phones. Are we teaching our children how to have appropriate, effective face-to-face encounters or are we showing them how to be plugged-in and value computer mediated communication over face-to-face encounters?

While weak-ties are important for professional reasons, is it encroaching on other sections of our lives? Linked-in is a professional website that links professionals from similar occupations with the ability to recommend candidates, post job openings, or engage in mentor seeking. While this can be important professionally does it hurt our social lives to create and treat weak ties like true friendships?

Is Facebook a way to mark friendships? Just like friendship bracelets or necklaces we wore and got our best friends to mark who we were friends with when we were in  grade school, Facebook has become the new way to mark who we associate with as an older generation. It is a way to create a social hierarchy of who knows the most people, or the 'best' people and to create an almost voyeuristic interest similar to what we have with celebrities but with our own friends or social groups.

So is friendship changing? Yes, it's becoming more connected while becoming less connected. More about online and virtual reality than face-to-face intimacy. More about who is around when I'm bored than seeking others out to spend time with friends on a mutually agreed upon time. Instant gratification comes to mind again when I think about Facebook and all the different ways we can communicate through media interface.

What are your thoughts?

XOXO