Amadeus Hoffmann I have so manny friends on facebook that I need another word for the real ones. - Any Idea?
The rapid growth and widespread acceptance of Social Networks available on the internet raises many issues: technical and interpersonnel.
Social sites like MySpace and Facebook currently Add people, any contact, as Friends.
In the real world we all know people with varying degrees of intimacy.
Shouldn't our Social Network system reflect this?
Perhaps a descriptive scale would work? Stranger .. Acquaintance .. Colleague .. Personal Referee .. Work Referee .. Workmate .. Girlfriends .. Mate .. Boyfriends .. and any number of further distinctions.
I find it a fascinating distinction that simply because all my Friends on Facebook are called Friends I feel a certain obligation towards them. Isn't that true for you, too? If those connections on Facebook were labeled "People I know" that would evoke an entirely different feeling. Don't you agree?
On the other hand, there are a bunch of contacts I have that I'm happy to call Friend but when I see their face I have the thought, "Good business contact" or "Great Studio Musician" or "Talented Freelance Graphic Designer".
Currently we can use Lists - labels we can create for containers we can put 'Friends' into!
Lists. Are they satisfactory?
One useful list I did think to create was for the highly addictive and incredulously popular online game FarmVille. A key feature of the game is a network of Friends playing the game. The game depends so much on input from other users - that must be in your list of Friends - that it drives many players to add 'Friends' on the sole basis they play the same game.
Now this is quite okay and probably not a problem, however.. Every person you add, unless you specifically and laboriously tweak your information has access to your live feeds, photos and personal information. Perhaps you don't want that?
So I created a list called "FV Freaks". Now the referal to Freaks has nothing to do with these people being strange and unusual but rather an old reference to phreaking - a technique used to make free phone calls from a telephones by freaking the line.
My FV Freaks 'LIST' is not quite perfect but it does work. I'd perhaps rather call those people FV Friends. If and when I get to know them better, with a better gradient scale of relatedness, promote them to another level of personal connection - New Friends, for example.
This would add flexibility to our profile and make sharing more or less personal information easier. The founding premise here is that our online profiles are becoming more extensive. The opportunity to exploit personal information recorded online has never been greater.
For the linguistically minded the objective here is to avoid debasing the word Friend. Like my friend Amadeus said, "I have so many friends I need a new word for the real ones".
Allowing users of social networks a greater degree of control of this information not only serves to protect our private information - photos, birth date, address and phone numbers - but also enhance the depth of connection we achieve with those we consider close friends.
A world full of acquaintances will never replace a handful of close friends. In the immediate future our social networks must move to accommodate this growing need.
Do you have hundreds of friends, of which 4 are immediate family, 30 are relatives, 5 are good mates, and 200 other people you've crossed paths with, spoken to once, belonged to a mutual interest group or some other tentative connection? Dare I suggest to the person who says they have 200 close friends on Facebook is superficial? I am not making that assertion, however, a finer distinction than Friend may be required.
Thanks for taking the time.
Questions:
- Do you think online networks bolster real face-to-face communication.
- How many Social Network 'Friends' do you have?
- How many Friends in your Social Network are real, good, face-to-face friends?
- Share your thoughts here:
