Facebook Friendship?

One of my side interests in this day of ours is the concept of social networking and virtual friendship. Not too long ago, I preached a sermon on the idea of friendship and what it means at Brooklife (see April 27 sermon here). My opening illustration was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the ways in which Facebook has ‘revolutionized’ my friendships based on quantity.

I happened upon a fascinating analysis of this issue in Christine Rosen’s article “Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism” at The New Atlantis, a journal about technology and society. Rosen provides an in-depth look at the history of virtual friendship from early bulletin board systems to Facebook, a helpful look at the sociology of ‘connection’ and degrees of separation, the focus of self-revelation within online social networks, the underlying human need for status and anxiety about that, followed by a look forward from here.

Whether you are a Facebook or MySpace user or not, this article offers a series of important insights into the world of virtual friendship that we are increasingly taking for granted as “the way it is” in the world today.

At the risk of taking much of her thought out of context, let me offer a few excerpts of statements that I found particularly insightful (apologies for no page numbers here as I read this online):

• “It is the timeless human desire for attention that emerges as the dominant theme of these vast virtual galleries.”
• “These sites make certain kinds of connections easier, but because they are governed not by geography or community mores but by personal whim, they free users from the responsibilities that tend to come with membership in a community. This fundamentally changes the tenor of the relationships that form there, something best observed in the way social networks treat friendships.”
• “Because friendship depends on mutual revelations that are concealed from the rest of the world, it can only flourish within the boundaries of privacy; the idea of public friendship is an oxymoron.”
• “The impulse to collect as many ‘friends’ as possible on a MySpace page is not an expression of a human need for companionship, but of a different need no less profound and pressing: the need for status.”
• “But social networking sites … discourage being ‘shut off of’ people. On the contrary, they encourage users to check in frequently, ‘poke’ friends, and post comments on others’ pages. They favor interaction of greater quantity but less quality.”
• “Real intimacy requires risk – the risk of disapproval, of heartache, of being thought a fool. Social networking websites may make relationships more reliable, but whether those relationships can be humanly satisfying remains to be seen.”

Thanks, Ms. Rosen, for an excellent article!