Friendships & Social Networks

Social networks are like a popularity contest for most. They just want to see how many “friends” and “followers” they can get.

But, for others, it’s a way to keep in contact with the ones who live far away. They share pictures and videos and drop a “happy birthday” line. These things come in handy for most who do not feel comfortable in sending developed pictures in an envelope, those who forget to mail a card, or for those whose phone service is not working to give that person a call.

On a network like Facebook, we all tend to add people we know or add people from our past. We may work with the person or we could have gone to middle school together.

But, we should stop to think about this question: Does this really make us friends?

I think we hope that it would bring us closer together, but a lot of times it does not. Yeah, sure, we comment on someone’s wall or pictures or “like” their statuses, or retweet one of their tweets, but do we take the time out to ask, “Hey! When can we hang out?” Do we take the time out to say, “I’ve been thinking a lot about how we were back in the day…I miss it”?

The truth is; we don’t.

Many are guilty of this also: passing by a “Facebook friend” on the street or at the mall, either we quickly take a detour or we pass by them without acknowledging. We might not do it on purpose, it may happen subconsciously. Some may say it’s easier to chat with a person through the web than it is face-to-face. Why? Don’t lead someone on to make them think you are really friends with them, when you truly aren’t or do not want to. Why keep them on your list of friends? If it’s just to be nosey on what’s going on in their lives, how immature. Do yourself and everyone a favor; delete them from your list.