The last time I checked I had 373 friends. Who knew the day would come when all it took was a log in to see how many friends you have. But this does not really equate with the number of people who will actually ask how my kids and my dog are, keep themselves posted on whether I have my driver's license yet, send their regards to my parents, chat with me online or on the phone, plaster my Facebook wall with sweet, silly messages, and comment on every status and photo I post. Some people I know have close to 1,000 friends! Does this make me a bit anti-social, or introverted perhaps, or not quite popular? And some people on my friends list I vaguely recognize from their profile photo! (As a rule, if I get a friend request from someone and we have at least 2 common friends, then I accept. Even if I don't recognize the name or the picture; hey, sometimes people's faces change a lot over time!) And I also do not send out friend requests to every single entity on the People You May Know list. Well, maybe I should, and maybe I will reach 400 friends.
What's with this number anyway? It has redefined friendship for me, so now friends include acquaintances, people I've met all of two times in my whole life, or who I've seen out and about in high school or university but never actually exchanged words with. And some friends who I actually value are either not online, much less on Facebook. I've even come to define myself as a person in terms of who are on my friends list, and how I fill this list. I'm scared to send friend requests because I think I would be affronted if they didn't accept within, say, a day. Someone unfriended me, and we both knew it was high time and a healthy move for both of us, but it still left me depressed for a couple of days. Don't get me wrong, I love Facebook because I've reconnected with old friends, and it has given me a clearer perspective of how different circles of friends have formed me as a person, and where each circle stands in my life now. The renewed friendships within my high school batch has allowed us to reach out and help each other.
I just wonder at how much the dynamics of Facebook friendships have affected the actual sociology of human relationships. How much will my real life relationships change based on actions on Facebook by my "friends"? This friend who unfriended me, how will I act towards her/him when we see each other again? How can a simple act of clicking the Like button change how I feel towards someone? Mind-boggling how our lives have gotten confined inside a computer screen (or a smartphone for that matter). As if our physical beings have suddenly turned into a hologram and got sucked into machines. Is this how the evolution of man is going to happen?
What's with this number anyway? It has redefined friendship for me, so now friends include acquaintances, people I've met all of two times in my whole life, or who I've seen out and about in high school or university but never actually exchanged words with. And some friends who I actually value are either not online, much less on Facebook. I've even come to define myself as a person in terms of who are on my friends list, and how I fill this list. I'm scared to send friend requests because I think I would be affronted if they didn't accept within, say, a day. Someone unfriended me, and we both knew it was high time and a healthy move for both of us, but it still left me depressed for a couple of days. Don't get me wrong, I love Facebook because I've reconnected with old friends, and it has given me a clearer perspective of how different circles of friends have formed me as a person, and where each circle stands in my life now. The renewed friendships within my high school batch has allowed us to reach out and help each other.
I just wonder at how much the dynamics of Facebook friendships have affected the actual sociology of human relationships. How much will my real life relationships change based on actions on Facebook by my "friends"? This friend who unfriended me, how will I act towards her/him when we see each other again? How can a simple act of clicking the Like button change how I feel towards someone? Mind-boggling how our lives have gotten confined inside a computer screen (or a smartphone for that matter). As if our physical beings have suddenly turned into a hologram and got sucked into machines. Is this how the evolution of man is going to happen?
