“He warned that the sites are contributing to a trend for teenagers to put too much importance on the number of friends they have.”*I am persuaded by folks like Marshall McLuhan who argue that different media enhance certain means and styles of our perception, while downplaying others. In the case of social networking, I think it’s possible that the form of the medium motivates us to want to accumulate friendships instead of deepen them. On the other hand, social media have enabled me to sustain and maintain friendships over time that I might have lost because of distance or time otherwise.
My experience with social media is the opposite of another of Archbishop Nichols’ concerns: that it leads to transient friendships. I think being a fickle teenager who has fickle teenage friends leads to transient relationships, though the constant availability of social media might intensify the experience. In my experience, social media have allowed me to take relationships that might have been transient – a conversation at a conference, or in the church narthex, or at a friend’s party – and turn it into a friendship. Of course, for each real friendship I have gained this way, I have also racked up a few more tally-marks on my friend count who I never really engage with again.
This leads to one question I have about this issue: is this an acceptable trade-off? Are the friendship-enhancing functions of social media worth the risk of taking time and meaning away from deeper, face to face friendships?
I was more firm in my dismissal of this concern before I read this story in the New York Times last fall. The columnist decided to invite all of his 700 Facebook friends to meet up with him at a local bar, and only one person came. I think about that sometimes too, like when I was sick with the flu, and had a pretty short list of local people who I felt I could ask to go pick me up some Gatorade.
Ultimately, I think as long as we use our internet friendship as a supplement to real relationships, where we get to know people and show God’s love to them, it can be a useful tool. But we should be cautious about seeing our value as people linked to that friend-count number. It’s a more consumerist version of an old obsession with popularity, to be sure, but thinking of your friends as a commodity to be displayed is at least shallow and unhealthy, and doesn’t invite the self-giving love of others that Jesus demonstrated. Are there ways we can combat thinking about relationships as commodities, and promote a more Christ-like example? Can we do them online?
*I have strategically truncated this quotation to leave out a more controversial, and I think overstated, claim that this leads to teen suicide.
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Comments (3)
Firstly, in Australia recently, a teenager committed suicide after being cyber bullied. That's a danger that we have to consider when thinking about online social networking sites.
Secondly, I think teenagers in particular are likely to base their worth on how many friends they have on places such as Facebook. Which is never a good thing.
Thirdly, people do not treat others online as they would in real life. They are often more cruel. They don't care as much about the other person because they don't see them and they don't see how they react.
Fourthly, I think God designed us to operate in relationship and community with other people. And by that, I mean the type of relationship and community that comes from being face to face and living alongside others. And it is very easy to neglect those 'real' relationships for the sake of virtual ones.
Yes, the internet does provide some good things. As you mentioned, it enables people to stay in touch with people they would otherwise lose contact with. But we must keep in mind the substance (or lack thereof) of these types of relationships and also spend at least some time thinking about the impact of virtual communication and how we work through the problems that can arise.
That seems to be the real point. Depth of relationship can be there, but you have to want it and work with it. Online friendships have their disadvantages as well as their advantages. It helps that I can connect to other people that don't quite fit in to their offline social sphere like me, and also I get to meet many more diverse people than I would otherwise. But again, it comes down to what kind of relationship you're seeking out. Fickle, superficial relationships can be found in the middle school lunch room, too.
This problem existed before the internet. Having worked with kids for a number of years, only a small number actually seem to care about the number of friends they have. If they do, it is usually a friendly competitive thing. I can only maybe name one or two kids that seem to really take the numbers thing seriously - and they do this in real life too - because to the parents, numbers of friends is important.
"My experience with social media is the opposite of another of Archbishop Nichols’ concerns: that it leads to transient friendships."
I'd bet that Archbishop Nichols' has a number of transient friendships too, and has for most of his life. You just can't interact with people and keep them all in your inner-circle. Likewise, the more important you are to a group or culture, the more friends you are going to have of varying importance.
"This leads to one question I have about this issue: is this an acceptable trade-off? Are the friendship-enhancing functions of social media worth the risk of taking time and meaning away from deeper, face to face friendships?"
I use social media frequently. It has allowed me to deepen many relationships. It has also caused me to lose friends too (somebody doesn't like a religious statement or something silly I put on my site, they de-friend and then don't want anything to do with me -- though, this is rare).
I like that a quick scan allows me to know the mundane in people's lives. It is in the mundane that you can start to see patterns that lead to bigger things. Even more important, this gives me an opportunity to pray for somebody that I might have not considered in some time.
Yes, there are pros and cons, but what is a pro or a con is largely up to how the individual handles things, not the platform itself.
"Ultimately, I think as long as we use our internet friendship as a supplement to real relationships, where we get to know people and show God’s love to them, it can be a useful tool. "
I agree with this. As I walk through the schools, and I go to youth group, it is still a relative rarity that I see somebody isolated and only interacting with others only via electronic mediums. The few that do this, have deeper issues and have bigger things in play that still would exist outside of the social platform.