All our friends

Everyone, it seems, has something to say – and write – about social media, Facebook in particular. I’ve written about it myself, and I’ve read lots about it, and most of what I’ve read is so unoriginal that I’m left wondering how it made it into print. The anti crowd goes on and on about how social media actually separates people from one another. I agree, but the amount of time and space dedicated to making that point is curious to me. The pro crowd – who are mostly PR people who stand to make a lot of money on it by pretending they posses some secret and highly technical insight into it – is just as repetitive, but also more entertaining. I read a blog recently by some expert who wrote about 700 words to explain that the Olympics in Vancouver were different than the ones in Italy because people were using Twitter and Facebook to share scores and stories and photos with the world. Who needs the networks? Where he really put his laser-sharp knowledge of “the communications landscape” to work was by concluding that things were different at the last winter Olympics, four years ago. I was blown away.

Recently, though, I did read an interesting article in Harper’s. Harper’s, for what it’s worth, is my all-time favorite magazine. It’s the only thing that comes through the front door around here and gets read, cover to cover, regardless of whether or not I’m interested in the subject matter. Another thing I like about Harper’s is that the magazine adamantly refuses to use the word “content.” I’m not there yet, but I’m close to putting people who use the word “content” to describe what we read in the same category as those who use the word “leadership” to describe the lies we tell.

The article said, more or less, this: if social media technology is the future of human interaction, we need to downgrade our definition of the term relationship.

And downgrading we are. One heterosexual I know recently went on a long and sort of exotic vacation and got herself engaged. This, of course, was announced to hundreds of people via rather coy Facebook status updates, with the main one dashed off in another language, which gave the whole thing a sort of cool, international flavor. The onslaught on comments was amazing, not in terms of what they said – Awesome! Super Congrats! That’s so COOL! – but the number of them, which was, last I checked, well above 50, and the fact that I happen to know that a number of the comments were posted by people who not only dislike the bride to be but who actually loathe her. Why I spend my time doing this I cannot say for sure, but I scrolled down, reading one inane remark after another, and then I hit paydirt: a comment from the CEO! As I read the congratulations that morning, I was almost comforted in realizing that at least one aspect of human relationships does not require a downgrade: Even as we confuse friendships with technologically fueled posturing, the sycophants are as shameless online as they are in conference rooms. Regardless of the medium, fake trumps.

One of the last holdouts I know is a woman in Seattle. She refuses to sign up for Facebook, refuses. She’s also friends with the bride to be – in a real sense of the word, as in, they know each other from their growing up years, and they’ve done lots of things together, trips and boating teams and such. And since she’s not living via a Facebook interface, well, her friend didn’t get around to sharing the news of her engagement until a week after the commenting flurry, via a text message.