Friendship is Dying
Have you ever tried tallying the number of people in your life that you would deem a friend. More than likely if I asked you how many friends you have, you would have one of two distinct reactions. You would either ask me instantly with a smug grin the definition of a friend for the purposes of my question and then proceed to tell me that you have countless friends based on the mere fact that connection is a fundamental element of friendship in my definition and that you have over 500 connections on Linkedin. Thus, making you a person with many friends.
The other response to my initial question would be a reaction of utter disgust at the mere premise of the question as you fumble around in either handbag or jeans pocket to pull out your smart phone and reload a social media page and show me that you are friends with hundreds, maybe even thousands of people.
I have a deep concern about both of these responses. I would be happy to say that at least 95% of these ‘Friendships’ are fake.
Up until March 2020 I was generally unaware of the concern that I had around the current societal link between social media and ‘True Friendship’.
Then the world as we had once known it to be began to rapidly tilt on its axis. We could no longer have those casual weekend catchups with people at a café, socialise with people in person or to even just be present with other people beyond those that we live with.
Those initial months of uncertainty following the earliest outbreaks of Coronavirus made many things clearer to me but it is only know as I write this that these thoughts have become more solidified and confirmed. I began to wonder about the linkage between what differentiates ‘Friendship’ on social media and ‘True Friendship’.
Now before I delve into my thought processes around this concept of friendship it may be wise for me to tell you how I am defining ‘Friendship’ and ‘True Friendship’. Now I know not everyone will have the same definitions conjure up in their minds when they think of these words however for myself ‘True Friendship’ is that of a connection that you share with another person to the point that you would feel more than comfortable to send give them a call for some support, advice or even just to have a chat with when you are feeling lonely.
‘Friendship’ on the other hand is much is far harder to define as it has become entirely diluted and murky in the 21st century social media environment of showing support for your friendship by instantly liking an upload or commenting generic copy and pasted uplifting messages that you have sent over a dozen times that day. Now I know that my view on these definitions may be quite contrasting and negative. However, this image that I am painting portrays an eye opening fortnight that I have just undergone unravelling the script that I had become to understand as second nature that I am only now beginning to rebel against.
My moment to make a change.
As I was having my morning coffee on my patio two weeks ago undertaking the mindless activity of scrolling through social media to keep my occupied at banner icon popped into my field of view telling me my screen time for the week that preceded that Sunday morning.
I felt numb. I had viewed social media for over 26 hours during that seven-day period. More than a full day of social media consumption and what did I have to show for it. Definitely nothing of substance besides making my ‘Friends’ hopefully feel appreciated when I liked their pictures.
What also dawned on me was, do I actually know any of these people?
What I came to realise was that for almost the entirety of the people that I once deemed ‘Friends’ on social media all I knew about them was what they posted on social media and nothing beyond that. I knew just as much about them as a literate primary school child would if I gave them the social media pages of these ‘Friends’ to read for 5 minutes.
I don’t know about you, but how can you say that someone is your ‘Friend’ when the barrier for entry into that friendship is so low?
My Mission
I realised that this behaviour had to change. I could no longer live my life through then lens of someone who could effectively lose all of his ‘Friendships’ the moment he deleted social media apps from his devices. That just can’t be right.
So I set out to speak with 3 people that I was ‘Friends’ with previously on social media and made the attempt to connect with them on a deeper basis with the hope that the value that comes from a few hours outweighs the mediocre 26 hours on social media.
Making this attempt to connect with these people was far more difficult that what I expected, beyond my ability to adapt to this form of connect was the resistance that I felt from them also. I initially did not consider the impact that my decision would cast on those 3 people that I attempted to connected with. They were shell shocked for when they received a private message, they expressed when I called that they were surprised that I would ring instead of just sending them a DM.
At first my interactions were quite shallow with all of them, not much more conversation was exchanged beyond the information that I could have gleaned from their social media pages. However, as the conversation wore on over the past fortnight I can happily say that I believe that I have truly made progress in connecting with those 3 people to a level that would have been unachievable if I had not given them an initial call and had just remained liking their images on social media.
This experience has completely changed my perspective on using social media as I am still a user, more thoughtful and reduced now though.
I also came to realise the importance of you taking the first step in connecting with someone can be because you may not be the only one wanting to have ‘True Friendships’ and to me these are the friendships that are worth fighting for.
