A Facebook Redirect. Friendship & Who Do You Really Know?
I was just reading a post on someone's Facebook wall and she said that she's going to "weed out her friends" to only include the people that she knows in real life. Everyone else would be directed to a new Facebook page. I've "seen" her in real life, but never officially met her or hung out with her, so I'm sure that I'll be one of the many who are unfriended. *sigh* This was one of the reasons why I resisted joining Facebook for so long.
Anyway, it's a perfectly valid thing to do and her choice, but then I thought about some of the people that I know. If I spend time with someone in person, how much better do I really know them than someone that I've emailed back and forth with, and commented on their blog for years?
How many in person interactions does it take to equal years of online interaction for the purposes of being kept as a "real friend" on someone's Facebook page. A few months? More? Less? Is the Facebook friend to in person friend ratio like the ratio of human years to dog years?
How do we know when we really know someone? What counts more?
I've had a few "in person friends" for years who I thought I knew pretty well, then they each did things so off the wall, that I wondered if I ever really knew them at all.
What are your experiences? How do you know when you really know someone? Do we ever truly know anyone?
Anali's First Amendment © 2006-2011. All rights reserved.
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Anyway, it's a perfectly valid thing to do and her choice, but then I thought about some of the people that I know. If I spend time with someone in person, how much better do I really know them than someone that I've emailed back and forth with, and commented on their blog for years?
How many in person interactions does it take to equal years of online interaction for the purposes of being kept as a "real friend" on someone's Facebook page. A few months? More? Less? Is the Facebook friend to in person friend ratio like the ratio of human years to dog years?
How do we know when we really know someone? What counts more?
I've had a few "in person friends" for years who I thought I knew pretty well, then they each did things so off the wall, that I wondered if I ever really knew them at all.
What are your experiences? How do you know when you really know someone? Do we ever truly know anyone?
Anali's First Amendment © 2006-2011. All rights reserved.
This Post’s Link
Subscribe to blog posts. Follow me on Twitter.
Comments
As for the question of how we really know a person... I think it must depend on the quality of the relationship, not necessarily the time spent. Moreover, I've learned that knowing facts about people - how they like their coffee, what their favorite books and movies are, what happened to them in childhood that made them scared of bees, etc. - will always be less important than knowing how they will respond in a given situation. With compassion or contempt? With humor or with frustration? With generosity or with self-absorption, respect or prejudice? You can have a sense of the latter - their character - without knowing a ton of factual stuff - their personality. I believe either kind of knowledge can be a basis for claiming to know or be friends with someone.