What are Facebook friends for?

The Pharaohs built statues. Caesar put his visage on coins. We use Facebook and MySpace.

from the October 10, 2007 edition

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The world of online social networking is practically homogenous in one other sense, however diverse it might first appear: Its users are committed to self-exposure. The creation and conspicuous consumption of intimate details and images of one's own and others' lives is the main activity in the online social networking world. There is no room for reticence; there is only revelation. Quickly peruse a profile and you know more about a potential acquaintance in a moment than you might have learned about a flesh-and-blood friend in a month. As one college student described to The New York Times Magazine: "You might run into someone at a party, and then you Facebook them: what are their interests? Are they crazy-religious, is their favorite quote from the Bible? Everyone takes great pains over presenting themselves. It's like an embodiment of your personality."

But in doing so, might we miss an opportunity to get to know someone intriguing merely because we discover that her MySpace profile says she is a Republican? Or a vegetarian? Or passionate about karaoke? Our personal technologies allow (indeed encourage) us to filter out the things that we find distasteful – television commercials, boring tracks on a CD, political opinions with which we disagree.

Egocentric friendship

Social networking sites encourage a similar sort of egocentric single-mindedness about friendship. Friendship in that world has become an online instant opinion poll – immediate gratification for the person casting his vote, perhaps, but discouraging of reflection beyond that initial snap judgment. This has already spawned a culture where many people have more "friends" than real friendships. The impulse to accumulate as many "friends" as possible on a MySpace page does not stem from a desire for connection, but instead is an expression of another deeply felt human need: the need for status. In earlier centuries, the painted portrait was the marker of elite status that members of the middle class quickly adopted once they rose socially.

With the advent of online social networking sites, we have embraced a medium to create status, not merely to commemorate the achievement of it. By creating a profile and gathering thousands of "friends," we signal to others our importance. There is a reason that most of the MySpace profiles of famous people are fake: Celebrities don't need legions of MySpace friends to prove their popularity. It's the rest of the population, seeking a form of parochial celebrity, that does.

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