The Digital Decay of Friendship

[Adente 1,000]

So this was an essay I wrote for one of my college applications, but I genuinely liked how it turned out, and I want to know what you guys think of the issue I present in it. 

 

The word “friend” has been devalued since the advent of social media.  Being friends with someone used to have value and substance.  Now, we all have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook that we would never have called friends before.  Oh, that guy that you met that one time at that one place?  Yeah, he never would have qualified as a friend a few years ago.  But now he is a friend, at least, according to your Facebook profile.  Friend has gone from meaning a close acquaintance you spent meaningful time with to being someone you might or might not have ever even met in real life.  The changes to the word aren’t limited to online uses, either.  The meaning of friendship has decayed offline, too.  Now if we are even vaguely aware of who someone is, we will say that we “Are friends” with the person, instead of saying we “know them”.  Perhaps this is just a nostalgic yearning from one of the last generations who remembers the true meaning of friendship, not the Internet spawned one.  I always liken the change in friendship to multiplayer in video games.  When we used to want to play video games, we invited a friend over to our house and we fought over who got to be player one, or who got the “better” controller, and had a good time bonding.  Now, if you want to play video games, you just fire up your Xbox or PS3 and have thousands of other people online to play with at any given time.  Convenient, but not nearly as meaningful.  And so it goes with friendships.  We have surrendered quality for quantity in our friendships, and there is no obvious solution in sight for this glaring deficiency in human interaction.

 

So, what do you guys think? Has the Internet devalued true friendships? My personal belief is that, although meaningful relationships can be found and nurtured over the Internet, most "Friendships" forged this way aren't all that meaningful. (I had a word limit on the essay, so I couldn't really include that in there)

[Scootalove 10,684]

I actually do miss the meaning of friendship when you could actually interact with people to build a better bond. Most of the friendships online don't really mean much if you just met that person, but you start to have a closer bond with that person once you get to know them also knowing more about each other as the years go by.

[Standard User 2,127]

Man, I'm starting to hate college app and scholarship essays. They're gonna be the (extremely boring) death of me.

As for your point, I half-agree. I talk to maybe 10% of my Facebook friends list on a regular basis. I keep the others around because it has become something of a social stigma to be seen as having few friends, aka "unpopular." And as much as I don't care about my peer group, being seen in a positive light is important. However, the people I claim as "friends" online (mainly MLP, as this is the only site I go to where I actually converse with people) seem like genuine friends. I can talk to them about anything, they can talk to me about the same, and we can depend on each other for moral support and guidance.

 

I guess it comes down to your definition of friend and what a friendship requires. In fact, bro is one of my closest pals simply because I can talk and laugh with him. That is what friendship is to me: two people being able to talk in private and laugh their troubles away.

Regardless, I feel that the Internet has degraded true friendships like you've described. Sad, but true.

[Adente 1,000]

Man, I'm starting to hate college app and scholarship essays. They're gonna be the (extremely boring) death of me.

 

Nah, they're not that bad man!   They kind of suck, but if you just sit down and pound them out, its not impossible! Take it from me, I applied to 18 schools!!

[Cygnus 60]

I think everyone who adds a "friend" on Facebook knows that what they made is nothing like what they have with their childhood friend, and on an emotional level friendship has been unharmed by the use of its name in social media. If anything's hurting friendships, it's more general cultural and social shifts in attitude when it comes to other human beings and investing in them long-term. Social media may play a part in this, but not through the use of the term "friend." A word is just a word.