Tonight while I was taking a quick glance at the profile of a director friend of mine who appears to have recently joined Facebook, I noticed that a friend of his posted a comment to his wall about all his new “friends” on the ubiquitous network.  The comment said something to the effect of “you can’t possibly be real friends with all these people – let’s get real here”.  Well, I think this person is right – let’s get real about what it means to have a friend on Facebook (or any other social media platform, for that matter), because I think the distinction between digital friendship and real life friendship needs to be better understood.

So, below I’ve reposted my response to this person’s comment on my director friend’s wall; I know I’ve said as much about this stuff in my post about silently unfriending people on Facebook, but I feel the need to discuss the issue further.

‘Digital friends’ are not the same as real life friends (though sometimes a friend may be both), and digital friendship does not possess the same obligations as real friendship – in fact, generally speaking, digital friendship has no obligations, apart from clicking ‘Add’ or ‘Ignore’. Networks like Facebook are a great way to narrowcast information to a niche audience of potentially interesting connections, and to acquire information from the same; depending on how you choose to filter (by actual settings or just plain old indifference) the data coming in. Because you’re dealing with profiles rather than having face-to-face encounters, you don’t actually have to do a thing when somebody attempts to interact with you if you don’t want to (“my Internet connection was down” or “I was busy doing something”, etc, etc. – What do they know? Nothing.) You deal with, or don’t deal with, digital friendship on your own time – it’s incredibly convenient!

And because there is no cost for acquiring a new connection (digital friend), then there is only ever a potential net gain from establishing it.

For example, 99% of what I publish (post) may be completely irrelevant to you; you can filter it out, ignore it when you see it, etc. However, there is always the chance that I will publish something that is relevant to you, that might catch your eye (for instance, a job opening at a company you’re interested in, news about a close friend that you might not have otherwise heard, or information about a deal on a new product – the list goes on and on). By *not* being Facebook friends with a person in order to illustrate to yourself or others that you are not real life friends with them, you’re ultimately only restricting the potential flow of useful information in your network. You stand to miss out.

So, when REDACTED added me he wasn’t trying to say “Hey everyone, Matt Stringer and I party every night on the Strip together, he’s like my best friend in the whole world!” – instead, REDACTED was merely opening a channel for a potential net gain in social capital and personal welfare, and it cost him nothing. I say good for him.

There are plenty of times when it’s appropriate to not accept a friend request – you don’t know or have never met the person, personal privacy issues, concern about appearances, etc.  Of course, these reasons can also be mitigated with a proper understanding of how to control privacy settings, actually meeting that random co-worker that wants to add you face-to-face, getting over what you think people think about you, etc, etc.  FWIW, I think if you’ve met a person and gotten to know a little bit about them, you ultimately only stand to gain by adding them.  Let’s face it, in the wake of Facebook’s privacy controversies and allegations that the network sold personal data on users in violation of their own privacy policies, at this point the word “Friend” on Facebook is basically a misnomer now.  I mean, Coca-Cola and Nike are pretty much your Facebook friends now, too…  so, I say, don’t worry about that word ‘friend’ anymore, think ‘connection’, and everything should be fine.  Because, the better connected, the better your life may be.  Assuming you’re not dealing with a creep (but as always, think before your post, and filter, filter, filter!)

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