How Many Friends do You Really Have (Personal Post 2)

After reading an article in Wired magazine I became even more disenfranchised with Facebook and social networking in general. Yes it is a great way to stay connected, follow your favorite celebrity and most importantly procrastinate on work, but is the new way we define friend a good one? Does it need to be defined by how many followers we have on Twitter or how many friends on Facebook? Are these really meaningful connections with people? Has social networking taken the social aspect out of networking? Is it just a way for lazy people to keep tabs on people they are supposedly friends with instead of trying to actually make time for someone? Is it friendship on our own time and not two people making time like they used to?

I do enjoy Facebook at times but overall less and less everyday. Through the article in Wired 19.08 I found there is a cap on friends and it's at 5,000. Can you really have 5,000 friends? Anthropologist Robin Dunbar does not seem to think so, according to her research we can only connect with 150 people at any given time, which I still believe is an impressive number. Come on I do not believe for a second that you have meaningful conversations with at least 90 percent of the people you are friends with and you see maybe 20 percent of them outside of class. I really don't think it is necessary to be friends with people you aren't that close with in general. If you only have a polite conversation you run into in real life you wouldn't consider them your friend but now as soon as you get home one of you is going to look the other up and boom Facebook friends.

Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst did a long term study that concluded in 2009 and found that over the course of 7 years we replace 48% of our friends with new ones. I find this to be very true and understandable. People grow apart it's a part of life. We all go our separate ways it will happen, it's sad at times but yes we all change and grow. So our of your circle of 150 people 65 of the will be different in seven years think about that. Think about how hard it is to maintain relationships and think about how hard Facebook can also make that. You can make the argument that it makes it easier but I do not believe it is easier, it is just more convenient to stay friends that way cause you can talk to them all hours of the night and leave a post asking how they are. How many people that you do that with do you see outside of class or off of Facebook, I am guessing not a lot.

Facebook takes the hard work out of friendships. The face to face talking and getting to know someone. There are times you assume one thing when you are reading a conversation versus having a conversation. I want to look someone in the eye, I was to hear their voice, I want to see their body language to truly get the feel and understanding of the person they are. You cannot do that on Facebook, sure there is Skype but the person to person connection is taking on a vastly different meaning that it has in the past and it's very disconcerting to me. It seems like we are being a rule because we have become more technology oriented.

Think of it this way. You can have all the friends in the world that want to talk to you on the internet or keep tabs on you but how many of them are going to be there for a phone call or to hang out when you are having the worst day ever because they care that much. That's true friendship and if they aren't on that list they shouldn't be on your Facebook list. Friend has become a diluted word and it really makes me sad and more nostalgic for when I was young because every weekend there was a group of two or three people I wanted to hang out with and we always would, they were great friends. Half the people on my Facebook friend list I have never hung out with after class or less than a handful of times. So I leave you with this parting shot, look at your friend list and ask yourself who is truly your friend. Now if you will excuse me I have some fat to trim from my own friend list. I hope we all wise up and get back to the art of person to person communication. I leave you with this link.