256 of My Closest Friends
I still find it funny every time I find myself reading status updates or wall posts from people I haven’t known since high school. One of my 256 Facebook “friends” I haven’t known since pre-school! She added me and commented on how we used to be in the same play group and now I find myself knowing everything about her from who she is voting for to her love of her new iphone to even seeing pictures of her kids who are about the same age as she was when we last knew each other.
The NY Times Article, The Brave New World of Digital Intimacy, explores just how profound a shift Facebook and other technologies have and will have on how we communicate with others. Almost through osmosis we now are able to connect with people and get a feel for their lives, a phenomenon that social scientists have termed “ambient awareness”. Clearly the world has changed and this enormous; yet still brand new, form of communication brings us closer to a much larger number of people. With 256 friends, it only takes 100 people to potentially reach 25,000. Just think what 10,000 could do.
This entry was posted on Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 9:25 pm and is filed under social media, Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
