Re: Online Friends Are Real Friends
For my third and final JulyReply entry, I selected a really obvious--at least to me--blog for responding. The Absurd Pirate talks about the transition of how "online friends" are perceived by others, as there was at one time a harder wall separating the world of offline and online friendships. Nowadays, the stigma may have dissipated, but questions about what "offline" and "online" friendships persist:
I think of a friend who moves away, and that you only talk to online anymore. By all intents and purposes, they're now mostly an "online" friend. But does that really change the bond you made with that person? Is the fact that person is now on a screen for all of your communication make your friendship any less valuable?
Folks can jump over this proverbial wall in either direction. Your college friends or friends from your first post-college job may have moved to different cities or states in the intervening years. Your online friend whom you have talked with for a couple decades meets up with you during a vacation in your city. How do you classify these folks in either case? Do your college friends or first-job friends no longer count due to the lack of physical proximity? Does your online friend get classified as something else because you met them? Do either of these types of friendships fade away if your communication method becomes obsolete or unfashionable?
Similar to our cockeyed buccaneer, I have had long-lasting friendships that started out on a BBS, migrated somewhat to LiveJournal, then found their way across several social media platforms. I also still talk with college friends, and even a small group of high school friends, which I wouldn't be able to do as easily without the social media platforms. The stigma of offline vs. online friendships has essentially evaporated, and not just because online usage has increased over and across numerous generations. Over time, we as a people have been able to fold online communications as just another form of expression, no different in nature than oral storytelling or the written word on paper. We have understood that communication is what you make of it, even if the tool being used is new to us.
All of the questions asked by the Absurd Pirate, or by me in reaction to his quote, can be answered by talking about communication and effort. Your college friends can still be your friends today, even if you talk through Facebook. Your first-job friends can still be your friends now, even if you only chat via text every so often. Your friendships still have value, regardless of technology, as long as you both want to put in the effort. It's natural for some college friendships to fade as people head along different paths in life. Your former co-worker now has a new job, as do you, so your bonds aren't as strong anymore. It happens. In some of these cases, even the best use of technology to communicate can't restore what's no longer there. But if you make the effort and if the bonds are still worth preserving, you'll still have these friends even if you're reduced to talking via two tin cans and a string. Worry less about the cans being used, and focus on the communication and friendship instead.