Further to a post I made the other day about the nature of "friends" on Facebook being more like imaginary friends from childhood than real flesh and blood people, I noticed an interesting article online last night from Newsweek. In the article, a number of sociologists were interviewed describing the benefits of Facebook contacts over face-to-face or telephone contacts in particular circumstances, such as bereavement at the loss of a family member. The article shows that, although in some circumstances, a Facebook contact cannot replace the real world support of a face-to-face contact, in other circumstances, Facebook lessens the burden of a multitude of time-consuming and emotionally draining individual contacts during difficult times.
More on Facebook and Friendship
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The Economist a while back ran a short piece on Facebook, "Primates on Facebook: Even online, the neocortex is the limit" (Feb 26th 2009, The Economist print edition, available at http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13176775 ). That story discussed, among other things, research on the number of friends with whom one actually interacts in Facebook and how that number is actually in line with research on primate social group interactions (associated with grooming and so on). So – despite the technology, our behaviors may not be so different than when we were up in the trees with the chimps.
Not only that, but all this social networking is making holding down a job or maintaining your privacy incredibly difficult: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2009/06/12/be-careful-what-you-write-social-media-marketing/
Interesting thoughts, but there is no way you can compare face to face comfort to online via facebook.
Facebook is the new face to face!