Are Facebook friends real friends? What is real friendship? Three experts will try to give a solution to these enigmas:Kari Henley, Phil Cooke, and Sarah Jacobsson .
But first, have a look at these eight different people connected with our topic (social networking, mass media, etc.) with more than 1,000 friends:
- Tiscar Lara: tiscar (Vicedecana de Cultura Digital EOI) [university]
- Dolors Reig Hernández: dolorsreig (UOC, etc.) [university]
- Marta Pastor: martanauta (RTVE) [mass media]
- Jose A. Del Moral: jamoral (Alianzo) [ist]
- Eneko Knörr: enekoknorr (Ideateca) [ist]
- Luz Martín: Luzmartinoviedo [tourism]
- Alberto Ortiz de Zarate:alorza [administration]
- Mikel Agirregaribia: agirregabiria (Responsable de Innovación Educativa de Vizcaya) [administration]
All of them are taken from Joseba Abaitua‘s published note, in which he suggests some friends of him who have more than 1,000 friends. The great thing of all them is that they are somehow intimately connected with the field we are facing now; social networks, the media in general terms. Furthermore, this piece of information allow us to discover what kind of matter do these people publish in their walls, what kind of links do they share, in comparison with the big companies patterns in Facebook.
Now the question is: are all those friends real friends? Let’s see the views of three experts in the matter: Kari Henley, Phil Cooke, and Sarah Jacobsson argue on this.
Whereas the latter deepens on what “The Sunday Times of London” reports (“if you have thousands of friends on Facebook, most of them are not your real friends”), Phil Cooke is afraid of the next fact he brilliantly depicts: “There’s a generation growing up out there that believes “Facebook” friendship is the same thing as “personal” friendship. They believe that even though you’ve never actually met, that by being friends in Facebook or Myspace, you should open up and reveal all – just like someone you’ve known for years”, and concludes that “there are deep implications” on this.
It is noticeable how Kari Henley tries to simplify the issue: “Maybe someday this will all blow over when we learn how to become telepathic. Then we can ditch all these terminals, beeping phones and complex devices and just return to the Oneness. We will simply know and trust that we are not alone and won’t have to prove it over and over again”.
Ladies and gentlemen, the debate is opened for you all.
Sources:
- Kari Henley: “Are Facebook Friends ‘Real’ Friends?”, from “The Huffington Post”, posted March 29, 2009 ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kari-henley/are-facebook-friends-real_b_180204.html)
- Phil Cooke: “The Difference Between ‘Facebook Friends’ and Real Friends“, from “The Change Revolution”, posted February 2, 2009(http://www.philcooke.com/Facebook_friends)
- Sarah Jacobsson, PC World Web Site: “Surprise: Facebook friends are not real friends”, posted January 26, 2010 (http://www.pcworld.com/article/187680/surprise_facebook_friends_arent_real_friends.html)
Alvaro D. Logroño González – Prince Charming
