How many friends do you have?

It’s crazy to think that the year I was born was the first year that a text was sent. I couldn’t imagine a world where everyone didn’t have phones and couldn’t be contacted both instantly and constantly. But is it healthy to have a world where we can’t get away from technology?

“In a media blackout 79% of students feel distress, confusion and isolation” (link).

I would feel completely isolated if I couldn’t have my phone. You don’t just use it to keep in touch with other people but I would use mine for the time because I don’t wear a watch. I feel like I have a fear of missing out. I could do without emails or TV but not my phone or face book.

It’s interesting how we spend a lot of time on the internet and social networking sites and ringing and texting less but even though face book was only created in 2004 there are now other social networking sites which are becoming bigger.

 “You have five friends, and the rest is landscape” - Portuguese saying

Apparently on average every person has 6.4 friends. And everyone else is an acquaintance. I researched a bit about this and found this wee description “a friend is someone who will drop what they’re doing and come and help you, if you need it.” I counted and I have 7 friends that I could call close and if I picked up the phone I know would do anything for me. One of these friends doesn’t have face book and I have to admit that I don’t talk to him as much because it’s not as easy.. When you’re on face book you can leave a wall post or a message and then you can log out and leave your computer, then when they go on they can reply when it suits them. Whereas if you’re ringing someone for a catch-up you have to make sure that you both have an hour or two free to actually have a proper conversation with them. Although it is nice if you haven’t been talking to them in a while and they haven’t seen your face book and know every detail about what you’ve been doing, you can actually have a proper conversation and you don’t find them saying “seen that on face book”

Social Networking does just reinforce social interaction for the friends that you are close to and will talk to but it diminishes it at the same time for the people you aren’t close to. If you just think of someone that you haven’t talked to in a while, instead of phoning them and asking what they’ve been up to all you need to do is go on face book and look at they’re page. It saves a lot of time and effort, than having to make conversation that you don’t have time for. But this in turn is destroying the art of conversation.

Although this poses a question “do we put too much online?” If any of your acquaintances can just go onto your page and find out what you were doing after just a few clicks. Sometimes some of your acquaintances just don’t need to know what you’re doing... Especially family, there are just some things they don’t need to know. And if employers check your online presence you really need to watch what you say because they make the decision on face value.


Heres a short video i found on the statistics of Facebook for 2011. The part about how much happens in 20 minutes is quite interesting and relates to the question "do we put too much online?"

I recently heard a discussion on the radio that the presenters mum followed him on twitter so she could find out what he was doing in his daily life. It wasn’t because she was being nosy or anything but because maybe she wouldn’t hear from him in a while and when she did, he would have forgotten about things that she might like to hear about.