Are some of my friends more real than others?

We can all agree that social connection is important. Strong friendships and rewarding relationships aren’t just a fun way to pass time - our readings this week suggest they also prevent us from falling into depression and substance abuse.  Human beings are social creatures, and interpersonal interaction is hardwired into our psyche.

So the question, then, is what does that mean in the digital age?  It’s a tough question to answer.

It’s very easy to find people saying that the rise of the internet, social media, text messaging, and/or whatever else kids these days are doing is leading directly to the downfall of human interaction.  Teenagers would rather snapchat someone than have a face-to-face conversation with someone in the same room as them.  Just look at Romero’s Death of a Conversation. It’s hard to get any more dramatic than that title.  It’s all right there – people walking around looking at their smartphones! If they weren’t staring at their phones, one assumes they would probably be striking up lifelong friendships with strangers in line at the DMV.  Back in the good old days, people were lively conversationalists, constantly entertaining one another with thoughtful banter when they weren’t too busy owning slaves and dying of cholera.

Although Romero’s work makes me roll my eyes a little, there is a reasonable point behind it. We all know that retreating into our phones or computers is a good way to cut ourselves off from social interaction. We have all had friends ignore us because they were checking their Instagram or whatever, and that’s really annoying. But digital media is also one of our major sources of human relationship.

It’s clear that computer mediated communication has become hugely important.  It’s where our friendships play out, where our relationships develop, where we flirt and romance and joke and discuss important issues.  Even an innocuous period at the end of a text is pregnant with communicative meaning.

There are many lonely people out there who would have a much more miserable life without the ability to form friendships in online communities. The internet is full of people looking for, finding, or even creating a place to fit in.

But is that really the same as a traditional, flesh-and-blood social life?  Can digital friendships give us the same sort of mental and emotional fulfillment? That’s the question that remains, and I’m not sure who knows the answer to it.