Friendship Equation Redux: Saying Goodbye to Facebook

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on friendship and facebook here. It was about the idea that many meaningful relationships can take place online and through social networks. I wrote, "Friendship is not always about being able to spend time with one another. Friendship is different than a marriage in which being together every now and then is a requirement for a somewhat healthy marriage. Friendship though, it seems, can function in a healthy manner without two people ever meeting," I am not back tracking on the thought. I do believe that friendship can function in a healthy manner without two people ever meeting; however, as I thought on it and as life events transpire, there needs to be live interaction.

Friendship may be able to function online but that friendship requires some personal human interaction. Not to make the friendship a true friendship but a friendship that is a real live friendship. Upon reflection, if everything is done online, if the social network is our only form of communication, we become trapped by it. We become slaves to a media that provides us with a safety net. There is not any risk to friendship online. One can be friends with others online. One can even invest in friends online but that investment is perhaps no different than the investment we make with characters on a reality show. There needs to be a tangible reality to friendship, to relationships. Without that tangible reality, we are simply Smiths (Matrix reference for the kids who didn't know who Emmit Smith was).

There is a degree of risk online but not the type of risk that a live relationship takes. We remove that risk when we maintain friendship solely by uploading photos or commenting on status updates. Relationships can become dull online and a dull relationship will eventually lead to a relationship that exists purely in the newsfeed. Risk is what makes a relationship exciting. Risk creates space in relationships for a deeper, holistic connection between God's creation. The more friends I make from the safety of social media, the less I am able to commit the amount of risk the relationship needs to be whole.

Social networks have made it easy to hide. As time goes by, as life passes us by, it becomes easier to sit here and pretend that I have created meaningful relationships. It becomes easier to reach out to a friend instead of taking the time to drive to where they are, to go and see them face to face. It's time for a change. Dullness is a sin and I'm tired of sinning. I'm saying goodbye to Facebook.