What does being a friend mean to you? What does it take for you to call someone your friend?
How has social media affected our definition of the words “community” and “friend”. Has it diluted it, broadened it, both?

The consensus seems to be that a friend is someone that you can call on in your time of need. I think that’s certainly one good criteria. That latter question ended up getting me a wider variety of answers. Before I delve into that, let me tell you what prompted these questions in the first place. It gets back to my podcast on critique.

One of the answers I kept getting, whether stated or implied, was that one didn’t critique one’s friends publically. Setting aside the notion of whether or not that’s true, what really jumps out at me is the notion that if you follow someone on Twitter or Facebook you are a friend of theirs on some level. I think that dilutes the definition of friend, at least the idea that a friend is someone that you can rely on and that you can share meaningful parts of your life with.

Don’t get me wrong, I do have “real” friends on Twitter, Facebook, and in the blogging/podcasting community. Some of these people I’ve met only a few times and others not at all. I wouldn’t have met most of these people any other way. So in that sense, it may have broadened my definition of friendship/community to include people I’m not physically proximal to. Those are people that I will share my deeper thoughts/doubts/fears with. Those are people I would “take aside” and hold accountable or challenge. I also expect those people to do the same for me.

Those people are only a small percentage of my crowd/tribe/whatever though. If I follow you or friend you that likely means I’m interested in what you’re saying. It certainly means that potential friendship is there, though as I told one guy, forming/maintaining friendships strictly through social media is practically speaking exponentially more difficult. It means I will be “friendly” with you, applying the Golden Rule as liberally as I can. More than likely though you’re not my friend and none of the rights and honors thereto appertaining, appertain to you. So in that sense my concept of community/friendship stays pretty tight.

I don’t want to water the word “friend” and I fear that the wider the social media net goes, the more likely that is to happen, at least on a macro level. What about you? Thoughts?

Friending is a post from: Spiritual Tramp

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