Comments on: Social Networking: Changing Conversation, Not Friendship

By: Dazediva

Dazediva — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:20:44 +0000

Really enjoyed your post. Just yesterday I had posted a note on the Art of Conversation and was going to follow it up with a topic on Social Networks. Have placed a link to your post via my latest post.
Do check it out

By: Ryan Anderson

Ryan Anderson — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 16:01:18 +0000

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.

By: B.L. Ochman

B.L. Ochman — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:40:52 +0000

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.

By: cindy@staged4more

cindy@staged4more — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 05:59:49 +0000

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