Friends. Facebook friends. Twitter friends. Friends in any other social network. Friendship has been re-defined. It used to be that we reserved the title "friend" only for those whom we knew personally, trusted and shared many values with, did things with and for. We knew the difference between the friends and acquaintances. Today, a person becomes a friend in cyberspace and that with only a few clicks of a mouse. Depending on how many networks we use, we can claim to have Facebook friends, Twitter friends and other kinds of friends. We may call them followers, as in the case of Twitter and Pinterest and other networks, as well as in the blogosphere. Very often, we often do not talk to most in our networks, though we may call them friends or followers or "circlers" as in the case of Google. We often do not know them, and may not even know about them. Friend used to be a noun but now it has become a verb, as in "friending" people on Facebook. We typically will communicate briefly with so-called friends on networks when we "add" or "friend" them, or visa versa, to thank them for "the connection" and maybe, to share a link on their Timelines. Then we often lose touch with them and never talk with them.
It used to be that we viewed friendship as a commitment of two people who care about each other, work things out, stand by one another and love one another because they are human beings. Today, so often we see the people we call friends on Facebook as disposable commodities, which we keep as long as they perform to suit our expectations, and throw out if they falter or fail to do so. We call it "deleting," "unfriending," "unfollowing," and "blocking" these disposable commodities. It also used to be that we saw friends in term of quality more than quantity. We were grateful for only a handful of real friends. Nowadays, in cyberspace, we tend to "collect friends" as we would collect stamps. This indicates that the purpose of online friendships is not the same as that of offline, in-person friendships. We do not think in terms of commitment, sharing, caring, and trusting, when it comes to our Facebook friends. We often have way too many of them to even correspond with more than a few. We may not even like some of the friends or followers in our networks. Many of us hear from those in our networks only on our birthdays, if then. Maybe this is why we online users tend to look forward to birthdays? It is fun to see dozens, even hundreds of birthday greetings be posted on our Timelines by online well-wishers.
As far as commitments go, cyberspace also has affected the way we communicate and handle interpersonal conflicts. Of course, divorce and broken relationships and friendships have, sadly, always been with us. Today, though, the easy online availability of the "Unfriend," "Unfollow" and "Block" buttons on social networks, have made human relationships cheaper and much more disposable. These options are used frequently and, I daresay, the way we relate online now affects the way we relate to those offline. The divorce rate, which had hovered at 50 percent for many years, has climbed to 60 percent. Facebook has ruined many marriages or, at least, has spoiled the element of trust and respect that may have been there before the spouse (s) took to social networking. Yes, cyberbullying has gotten out of control and continues to drive victims to end their lives. Anyone who says that the woes of online relationships gone bad, as "just being online drama," does not know human nature. The same emotional and verbal abuse that goes on in-person, is just as scarring and devastating, as physical, in-person abuse. Online drama is "not just online nonsense." It is real life, because social networks are made up of real people. Us!
Let me share something of my own online experience. My online connections have been full of lessons. Over the four and a half years I have used social networks, I have lost what I estimate to be well over a thousand Facebook friends. An estimated 10 to 20 people have, to this day, blocked me totally and have never changed that. I have been banned from two or three fan pages; the administrator of one of the fan pages had ended her last email with, "I do not ever want to hear from you again." Three years ago, I had applied to volunteer for a child abuse nonprofit with a major online presence. After issues which I do not want to go into here, I was dismissed from the nonprofit. The members of this nonprofit went so far as to remove me from their networks, treating me like a dangerous character. When I first joined Facebook, a missing persons advocate, based in Missouri, the same state I'm in, was offended at my posts of two missing children on her page. At that time, I was new to Facebook and unfamiliar with how Facebook works. This person and I sent each other heated messages back and forth, with her blocking me the end of that day. To this day, I remain blocked by her. Most recently, I was unfriended this past Friday by a person whom I has given hours of my trust and my time to. I had shared with her sensitive information that I haven't even shared with my pastors or my doctors. I was blocked by a person that she has been assisting over this past month. I won't go into the series of misunderstandings that led to these actions. I remain saddened and riddled with a mix of self-doubt and anger about the misunderstandings that led to two more failed relationships.
Yes, I know that social networking may prove to be a positive experience for many people. I'm sure that many of you may be blessed enough to never have experienced its dark side. Praise God for protecting you from the dark side of the Internet! I see people who are able to connect with friends and family via Facebook, and share photos and lifelong experiences. Facebook is a haven or an outlet for you, not a source of stress. I see families of the missing and the members of the autism community, who share in common the diagnosis of their children or their own, find in cyberspace a place of friendship and support. This is wonderful, if God blesses you with people who reach out to you in cyberspace. Even if some of you have had a taste of the Internet's dark side, you also experience the ups of cyberspace. However, mine has been a sorry situation where I actually turned to the Internet, partly, as an escape but mostly to give back. Because very few in my family used social networks, I was forced to add strangers. When strangers add you, as I found out the hard way, it is not because they like you but usually because you are a means to some end they want fulfilled. Nonprofits added me to get me to support their causes; businesses added me in the hopes that I would buy their products and, to this day, I have no idea why many people ever added me in the first place. Yes, I have been blessed to find some supporters who let me know that I "had their back" and they have never hit any "unfriend" or "block" button on my profile page. Thank God for you! You know who you are. You make my experience on here worth it.
I have learned, the hard way, that quality is truly far superior to quantity. It is pointless to have thousands, or even hundreds, of friends or followers, if none of these people know you or care about you. It's better to have a handful of friends or followers who truly support you and "have your back," than it is to have hundreds or thousands of numbers on a profile page. Anyone with me? Can I get many loud "Amens"?
Photo courtesy of MorgueFile.com.
This photo is by wax115.
This photo can be found here.
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