Oops ... John Naughton:
I’ve been writing something about the MySpace phenomenon and decided that I’d better sign up. I was then confronted by this rather depressing analysis of my condition! Zero friends! The thing that’s really weird about MySpace is its concept of what constitutes a ‘friend’ — which seems to be anyone whose profile takes your fancy. It’s much closer to the teenager idea of friendship than the adult concept. Certainly, it isn’t anyone you actually know. For me, a friendship denotes a serious relationship that’s been built up over time (otherwise it’s an acquaintanceship). So it’s unsettling to see fiftysomethings on MySpace — who really ought to know better — using ‘friend’ in the shallow, teen sense of the word.
Sorry, John, but I think that's both patronising and just a little out of touch. Here's danah boyd:
Why does everyone assume that Friends equals friends? Here are some of the main reasons why people friend other people on social network sites:
- Because they are actual friends
- To be nice to people that you barely know (like the folks in your class)
- To keep face with people that they know but don't care for
- As a way of acknowledging someone you think is interesting
- To look cool because that link has status
- (MySpace) To keep up with someone's blog posts, bulletins or other such bits
- (MySpace) To circumnavigate the "private" problem that you were forced to use cuz of your parents
- As a substitute for bookmarking or favoriting
- Cuz it's easier to say yes than no if you're not sure
The term "friend" in the context of social network sites is not the same as in everyday vernacular. And people know this. This is why they used to say fun things like "Well, she's my Friendster but not my friend." (The language doesn't work out so cleanly on Facebook.) The term is terrible but it means something different on these sites; it's not to anyone's advantage to assume that the rules of friendship apply to Friendship.
Teenagers know a lot about friendship and I don't think they're confused either by the difference between the friendships they're growing (over time!) and friendships that have been grown over many years, or by the way 'friend' is used online. Where they see adults with good, lifelong friendships, then that's what they look forward to growing, too.
If the adults are confused … But I suspect many adults have also worked out that 'friends' online isn't quite the same as 'friends' offline.
Of course, there is a big issue here concerning how social software differentiates between "real" friends and acquaintances. That theme has cropped up this summer in postings on Vox: Don (Park) has said there that 'the Privacy categories need more work' (ie, for whom am I posting this?), and
I think Vox will eventually need to provide more means for users to organize their neighborhood into cliques without exposing embarassing details to neighbors. By embarrasing, I mean I don't (want) a distant friend to know that I consider him to be a distant friend.
This is true generally of social software — if we want it to conform to the patterns of offline behaviour. On the other hand, I've found it challengingly discomforting and also liberating to have my nice little sense of 'private self' shaken about a bit …
