The Quagmire Of Social Media Friendships By Curtis Silver

The age of the internet has allowed for several things to become easier and that includes making friends. People can find others who share their interest through blogs and message boards and despite being sometimes an ocean away; these connections are very real and can last as long as normal friendships. On the other hand, some are skeptical of the authenticity of these online relationships. Curtis Silver wrote about the messy and complex problem of making friends online and if they are real or not in “The Quagmire of Social Media Friendships.” Silver presents the conundrum of whether the term friend has become to mean less and less due to its online definition. Despite arguments made against them, online connections are just as real and meaningful …show more content…
Even though this is what a friend really boils down to, some people argue that the barrier of a computer screen makes these online connections fake or even impossible. A large majority of friendships formed between people who know each other in person have been translated and maintained in online spaces like Facebook and texting. There is no reason to say that friendships formed entirely online with no physical contact cannot be just a real and important to some people. Online friends send each other messages throughout the day, organize Skype calls with each other to chat face to face, and play games together. They do all of this while being states away or sometimes countries away. Having friends can improve a person's life not matter their distance like Ellen Seidman explains in “FRIENDS.”, “An English study revealed that people with depression doubled their chances of bouncing back if they had enough friends with ‘healthy mood.’” Emotional connections based on mutual affection can be established regardless of whether two people have ever actually seen each other’s faces in person or …show more content…
It has become a throwaway word that does not truly mean the same thing on the internet than what it originally meant. Social media sites have turned being friends into someone who didn’t find the other person immediately creepy and accepted the friend request. Angela Harmon stated in “Social Media and Relationships” that this rapid accumulation of false friends “Can lead people to focus much of their attention on these perceived online relationships and ignore real-life connections, causing misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and breakups.” People will say they are friends, but at the most they mean acquaintances. People will say they are online friends, but they probably have had very little interaction. Curtis Silver said in “The Quagmire of Social Media Friendships” that “The advent of social networks has given us more ‘friends,’ yet at the same time has diminished true friendships.” What Silver means is that people have more friends, but the qualifications of being friends is not what it used to be or what it should