Friendship in the time of Facebook
In my posts I have several times praised all the advantages of modern technology, which allows news to spread fast and far. Your kid is born, place the news on Facebook and boom, in no time you have people all over the globe rejoicing with you. It is your birthday, just make sure the date is registered on Facebook and boom, in no time long lost friends and acquaintances congratulate you and wish you happiness.
This is fantastic without a doubt! It opens up infinite possibilities and keeps us connected and updated with more people than we had ever before thought possible.
By now you are feeling it coming, there must be a but. Well if you are what I call a group person, and the most important thing for you is to share your experiences with as many of your cronies as possible at all time, there is no but for you. Facebook is just great!
If you are like me trying to entertain personal relationships on deeper (and sometimes more painful) level the Facebook experience can generate one or two side effects.
In an old fashioned world friendship requires time, dedication, a good those of feelings and some pain from time to time. These are all scarce and costly items in modern world, making Facebook based friendship a much more economically efficient and therefore popular option.
These macro economic considerations do not really help you when you would actually need and love to see an old friend who is now only accessible via Facebook. The rewarding and heart warming experience that you used to have when talking and sharing real facial expressions will elude you more and more to the point of becoming a rarity.
Here is what I do nowadays, I cherish these rare moments and try to make the most of the currency at hand, but do not ask me whether I think that something is lost forever.
One of my professors at university predicted that in the future we would have so much bandwidth in our telecommunication systems as to allow us to transmit feelings. This premonition fascinated me enormously, and I wait and hope that technology will get us there.
This is fantastic without a doubt! It opens up infinite possibilities and keeps us connected and updated with more people than we had ever before thought possible.
By now you are feeling it coming, there must be a but. Well if you are what I call a group person, and the most important thing for you is to share your experiences with as many of your cronies as possible at all time, there is no but for you. Facebook is just great!
If you are like me trying to entertain personal relationships on deeper (and sometimes more painful) level the Facebook experience can generate one or two side effects.
In an old fashioned world friendship requires time, dedication, a good those of feelings and some pain from time to time. These are all scarce and costly items in modern world, making Facebook based friendship a much more economically efficient and therefore popular option.
These macro economic considerations do not really help you when you would actually need and love to see an old friend who is now only accessible via Facebook. The rewarding and heart warming experience that you used to have when talking and sharing real facial expressions will elude you more and more to the point of becoming a rarity.
Here is what I do nowadays, I cherish these rare moments and try to make the most of the currency at hand, but do not ask me whether I think that something is lost forever.
One of my professors at university predicted that in the future we would have so much bandwidth in our telecommunication systems as to allow us to transmit feelings. This premonition fascinated me enormously, and I wait and hope that technology will get us there.
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