all those people who are on Facebook are also on...

Hi, I'm Rachel Hills.

I'm a London-based (via Sydney, Australia) writer, researcher and contributor to publications including the Sydney Morning Herald's Sunday Life, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Glamour, Jezebel, Alternet and more. I'm also writing a book about Gen Y, sex and identity. This is my blog.

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all those people who are on Facebook are also on another network I use every day. It’s called the internet. So why do I think I can connect and interact with them on Facebook but not anywhere else? Because Facebook made it easy. So now I have to wonder am I only staying in touch with those people because it requires absolutely zero effort on my part? What kind of a person does that make me? What does that say about how much I value their friendship? I feel like I’m saying “Oh hey there, I’m so glad I can see what is going on in your life so long as it’s wheeled out in front of me and doesn’t require me to actually lift a finger because if I had to do something like, type out your e-mail or go to your own website or *gasp* pick up a phone to talk to you that would just be too much.

Sean Bonner on Facebook and friendship via Tomorrow Museum (via somethingchanged)

He’s right. Facebook builds relationships that otherwise wouldn’t exist, and it nourishes friendships that might otherwise wither away and die. If it weren’t for Facebook (or email, or mobile phones, or Tumblr for that matter), chances are most of us would cluster into the core groups of four to six that characterise sitcoms and soapies.

That’s not what my friendships look like, and partly that’s because I don’t have to pick up a landline and hope the person I want to speak to is home every time I want to speak to them. My friendships are bigger, messier, more loosely threaded together than that.

That’s not to say that there aren’t individuals who are very tightly threaded to me, or several more handfuls slightly more loosely but still significantly tied. But they are not necessarily all tied to one another. Nor are they all neatly located in close proximity to my house, so that I can drop by with a cup of sugar or a bottle of wine whenever I please.

That’s difficult enough in the public transport hell of Sydney, let alone in globetrotting 2010, where my nearest and dearest frequently (and somewhat inconveniently, I must say) scatter themselves across the globe.

So yeah. Facebook makes maintaining relationships easier, and that means it fosters relationships that would otherwise not exist.

There is something to be said for these ambient acquaintanceships, though. When I first joined Facebook, I was hesitant about editors I work with, writers I edit, people I’ve interviewed, friends’ partners and so on having access to my daily stream of consciousness. And indeed, I’m still somewhat selective about who I will ‘add’ (minimum criteria: I have to have met and/or engaged with you substantially), and still make judicious use of the ‘limited profile’ function. But in many cases, allowing this kind of mutual access has resulted in better relationships with these people, relationships that I might not otherwise have, but find value in nonetheless.

And while acquaintances aren’t lay-yourself-down-on-the-railroads friends, I don’t think we should be so cynical of them. After all, each of our friends started out as an acquaintance at one point - acquaintances are the seeds that with the right conditions can grow into our nearest and dearest. And if Facebook keeps them around until the right conditions come along, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.