5. We Have The Illusion Of Maintaining Contact With People
With its myriad photo updates, location updates, status updates, work and relationship updates, not to mention a chat function and the capacity to carry on miniature conversations with people online Facebook provides us with so many ways to keep people updated. And thats the operating word, right there updated. Its the equivalent of posting a note on the fridge telling people where youre off to. Yet it makes us feel as though were keeping track of people people that, if it werent for Facebook, wed probably not bother keeping track of at all. People wed lose touch with, as naturally as forgetting to return a phone call. Quite apart from giving us the illusion of intimacy with people that are barely acquaintances, it makes us terrible friends with those people that we actually do have a real relationship with. How many times have we wished someone you genuinely know and like a happy birthday on Facebook and then neglected to buy them a present, give them a call or even reply to a party invitation - and how many times have we clicked 'attending' to an event invitation, and then not bothered showing up? How many times have we clicked like, or commented on a status or photo, and formed the impression that weve engaged with that person, actually communicated something? Its not real engagement. In fact, engagement is another word co-opted by social media gurus the world over. Weve become lazy and shallow friends.