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Know anyone with 2,514 friends? If you do, you are probably connected to him or her on Facebook, or Twitter. And that person is probably a bit promiscuous with the "confirm" button. I don't think the nature of friendship is changing because of the Internet. But the nature of conversation -- which often leads to friendships -- has definitely been evolving and the change is positive.
I just saw the Whitney Museum's exhibit about Summer of Love, and it's clear that the Internet is no 60s Love-In. But it's got a lot in common with the days when people viewed total strangers as brothers and sisters.
What I do think has changed is the definition of conversation. I have had daily conversations for years with three or four different people whom I "met" when they responded to an article I wrote or we both commented in a forum and took a conversation into email.
Some of us have broken bread together, some of us have not. We've spoken on the phone, but not met in person. I consider these people to be among my close friends, and we have shared many details of our lives and some really good laughs over the past 10 years.
Friendships develop when people contribute interesting content over time, when they share links that are helpful or fun, and when we engage in actual conversation. And kindred spirits recognize each other no matter what the medium - that's the special sauce of friendship, and that's not changing.
I am happy to meet people through social networks, but they're not friends just because I met them online, any more than everyone who reads my blog is a friend. (Although I have formed some amazing friendships with readers.)
I will continue to be selective about whose friendship requests I confirm, and open to the friendships that can develop with the people who sound interesting. We sure do live in interesting times.
There's been some interesting discussion taking place in blogs and on Twitter about how social networks and blogs affect friendships. Steve Rubel, Stowe Boyd, both of whom I've met in person as a result of the Internet, and Anne Truitt Zelenka have all written interesting posts, from different points of view.
What do you think about online friendships?
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Comments
I think online friendship is great, as long as it is within both parties' comfort zone, and with clear boundaries, just like personal face-to-face relationships have. I have met many people in my industry through blogging, and when we meet in person, we act like old friends who have never parted. Internet has let me met many kindred spirits I otherwise would've not have met. However, I think it is different with facebook, where it is more like collecting your friend like baseball cards. For me it's just like another form of friendster. I have accepted many strangers as friends through friendster, but I have never become close to any of them. Online friendship still is like personal relationship, you still need that conversations to grow closer. ;)
Cheers,
Cindy
Posted by: cindy@staged4more | 08.30.07
cindy - facebook is changing and its functions are expanding daily. it's got many more ways for people to communicate, and to form groups and have individual conversations.
lois lemeur, for example, created a board of invited advisors and he asks us questions to get our opinions about business situations and ideas, and then tells us how he has decided to take action.
he often blogs about the info gathered in this way.
so facebook can be personal if you use it that way. same for linkedin.
however, i do think that the people who have thousands of "friends" in any socnet are doing exactly what you say, collecting baseball cards.
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 08.30.07
Friendships probably aren't changing for us, because we grew up with a predefined idea of what friendship is. The kids who are being born now, the digital natives, won't ever know a time when they weren't interacting over the web. A friend of mine's daughter "met" her grandparents in NZ over Skype video before she met them in real life. They still talk over video every Friday night.
When most of us were kids, it was a matter of geographic convenience. You live down the road from me, so let's be friends and play ball hockey. When those people move away or you change schools, you replace those friends with new ones. But since IM and Facebook and Skype have come along, there's no need to leave the lost friends behind. And since connecting online has been part of their culture since birth, it's a completely natural way to maintain friendships.
It's true that connecting over Twitter is no replacement for human interaction, but I don't think you can say that the web isn't changing the nature of friendship. It may not be for us digital immigrants, but for a whole generation of connected kids, their personal experience of interaction will be vastly different from what any of us experienced.
Posted by: Ryan Anderson | 09.01.07