Comments on: From Top Of The Pops to Nursery School – timetravelling backwards

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 17:38:21 +0000

Yes – again, it is faceless so almost like talking to yourself

Only you then share it with the world. Like an, erm, blog?

By: Lola

Lola — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 12:34:35 +0000

you’re right. But it struck me that it took me less than 2 minutes to write something which I wouldn’t share in real-life.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 11:29:00 +0000

This is part of the problem. Writing something is kind of faceless and, quite probably, we say more than we should because it almost feels like we’re talking to ourselves!

Probably, everything will be as it was.

Indeed – God knows why is a good response

By: Lola

Lola — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 09:59:36 +0000

Yesterday I noticed another thing.
I wrote something very private on whatsapp just because the person I had a conversation with was not in front in me! This person (who is someone I know in real-life but she is NOT among my closest friends) wrote my something about her private life and I did the same (God knows why).
This made me think about your post and about friendship and social media and/or chat etc.
Are we “closer” now?
Or maybe, next time we meet, everything will be just the same (friends but not close)?!

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 17:59:42 +0000

Yes, Lola, I knew you’d know lots about it but thanks for your praise!
I’m on FB because I can speak to my friends who are living all over the world now. Without FB I would have no contact with them (I’m a bloke so don’t write and rarely phone :-()
I’m on Twitter more as an observer and most people that I follow, I follow for reasons such as humour or information.
But I’ve found, during my time on both, that some people seem to treat it as almost more real than real life and it gets a bit out of hand sometimes.
Real-life friends are the most important, of course, as they can be there with you physically as well. I don’t think it’s curbed my meeting with friends – but then, most of them live so far away!

We seem to be heading towards “instant” everything. Unfortunately, I don’t think that really works with friends, as you don’t either.

By: Lola

Lola — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 17:16:35 +0000

Great post, Andy.
I really like the way you analyze social media and I agree with you on the fact that it’s a big nursery school.

So, what does friendship mean in the Facebook era?
There are several interesting academic papers on that.
As you know, I use FB through G’s profile for different reasons. Most of my real-life friends are not in FB. My non-Italian friends and colleagues use social media in a very professional way showing off their level of knowledge in relation to privacy etc.
Personally, I don’t take the whole thing as seriously as I should. I mean, I could never be friend on FB with someone I’ve never met just because I like his/her picture but, on the other hand, I could never post just boring professional stuff and be friend only with people I really trust.

However, I’ve noticed one thing.
I do meet less face-to-face with friends. There’s what’s up, the emails, Facebook etc. This is a shame, especially when this entails REAL friends! I’m not particularly proud of it and maybe social media are not to blame. Perhaps we are not really friends after all.

Maybe you don’t purge your friends in FB because the real-life purge would be softer and could take longer than one second click.

And yes, friendship needs time, patience etc. all things that get lost in the FB era…