The online arena and the changing definition of friendship

One of the things that always fascinated me with virtual worlds and social networks was how many users regard their online contacts as ‘friends’ in every sense of the word…with the exception that they’ve often never actually met.

This is a point raised in a Sunday Times column by India Knight (read it for free while you can!) and some research by MySpace via Sarah Perez on ReadWriteWeb.

India Knight’s column challenges the assumption that the Internet is killing off communal or family life. Using her own family as an example, India says:

“We may be differently occupied, but we’re hanging out together, each doing our own thing. Nobody would be throwing up their hands in horror if we were all reading our books or staring into space having our own thoughts.”

Exactly. Which comes back to the point that a lot of objections to online life are grounded in sentiment and not in rationale.

The quote that really struck me though was what India Knight said her son responds with when told that it’s odd to be gaming with “strangers from Arkansas or Fife:”

“The middle son shrugs and says that the people he’s chatting to are as real as you or me or “friends” on Facebook. They are just not physically present.”

And that’s the theme of the MySpace Europe study into 14-21 year olds. 36% felt that technology actually helped them open up and they shared more online. Meanwhile 72% felt left out of social groups outside social media.

Says MySpace Europe MD Rebekah Horne, the study shows how generation Y is “using online as a way to explore and settle into their burgeoning identities.” It reminds me a little bit of what academic Edward Castronova has called internal emigration – emigration in your mind, to a better place online.

What does all this mean for society?

On one hand, there is an argument to say that the Web develops (and not stunts) young people’s social skills and fosters a sense of belonging. On the other, there are the dangers of shutting yourself off from the real world.

As Sarah Perez says in her article: “The question as to whether this sort of behaviour is healthy is best left to psychologists to analyze and report, but there’s no doubt that at the very least it is having an impact.”

And following on from that, it will continue to do so. For example, see this Times piece about the top seven social networking sites for younger kids. By and large, the list is dominated by virtual worlds where interacting with people you’ve never met is the norm rather than the exception.

Image – geirarne