It's gotten to the point now, that I think words have lost a lot of their meaning, at least they have been watered down. Maybe this is something that happens throughout culture or maybe in this present day of technology, information and the urban dictionary, words just don't carry the same weight anymore. Personally, I feel there are several words that fit into this category, but the one that has struck me more recently has been the term "friend". Where we used to differentiate between buddy, pal, colleague and acquaintance, we really don't anymore. Everyone has been sort of lumped into the same category as a "friend". In my opinion, this really has dumbed down the word and made it carry less weight and less meaning.
My first example is me sitting in someones office and he says to me "Jason, I think of you as a friend," and I immediately think "not only do we obviously have different definitions of what a 'friend' is and how you should treat those, but I certainly don't want to know how you interact with those you haven't labeled that way." If we are treating our 'friends' so poorly, then can we really call them that? Second, I had a former player that would easily post a picture every week on social media of herself and her "best friend", wishing them a Happy Birthday. Now, there is nothing wrong with that, it actually shows how nice this person was and how she cared about those around her by remembering them, not at all a bad thing. But how many "best friends" can we have before those two words start to carry little or no meaning behind them in regards to our relationship with the other person?
So now let us get to social media and Facebook. While it seems kind of silly, I wanted to go through the different levels of "friends" on Facebook and my idea here is to show that with these varying levels and degrees of definition for what a "friend" is in one social media medium, I think it is safe to argue that this word in particular has lost a lot of it's meaning outside of the Facebook medium as well. My disclaimer for this is that these are all the different "friends" that I have (or have had in the past) on Facebook, so yes, I am 100% guilty of buying-in to this kind of thinking.
Friends you have hidden, or don't follow - I'm not sure as to the exact wording here. I know that you can hide certain people from your newsfeed or perhaps see them less. I also am pretty sure that you can go directly to someone's page and unfollow them without losing them as a "friend". What this really says though is that we don't want to sacrifice our "friend count" but we don't really care about this person in anyway. Whether it's a relationship gone bad or we just don't like the stuff they post, we are not interested.
Friends you follow, but don't comment or "like" - We all have these friends on Facebook right? We want to know what's going on, but from a distance. We don't want them to know that we know what is going on in their life and we certainly wouldn't want anyone else to know that we are interested or care about this person; the term "Facebook Official" comes to mind right away hahaha.
Friends you follow, but only "like" - We never actually engage with people on Facebook in these situations. We just like their photo, or status because we agree in some way, but never engaging or communicating with that person, except in a 'thumbs up'. This is hard because for me it creates this urge to 'like' things so that other people will do the same for me. In this we just go round-and-round where there is no legitimate communication or conversation, no actual relationship, just "likes".
Friends you actually interact with on a regular basis - Facebook certainly has it's benefits. With it, I am able to talk to friends from college and see what is going on in their lives with a lot of ease. In a world where we text more than call, I can stay in touch with friends overseas, or learn about vacations in real time, which is pretty fun I think. But let's be honest, I could easily drop my "friends" list on Facebook to fewer than 50 if this were the way we measured our friendships. These are the people I text, call or get in touch with in other ways outside of the social media realm. They are people I genuinely care about and I know that they genuinely care about me. In a world where we know a lot of stuff, but we are actually known by very few people, these kind of relationships are extremely important and I would take 10 of these over 10,000 friends on Facebook any day.
Friends you have unfriended - I have had people tell me that this is "mean" before and my response is always the same. You can call it mean and I will call it honest. If we can be honest and say that there is no way that I would classify someone as a "friend", someone I don't want to interact with at all, I think that would actually add value to the word "friend". We don't have to be friends with everyone, and why would we want to?
I want to be surrounded by people that know me, care about me, will support me, truly encourage me...it's amazing how joyous your life can be when you find yourself in that position. To be rid of all the people that pretend to care about you and actually be surrounded by those that do changes the way you think, feel and act. It's certainly something I have found these last few months and something that I look forward to more in the future.
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