Are Facebook Friends Real Friends?

What a stupid question you might say. Of course not. We already know Facebook friends are not real friends.

Well, it really depends. If you are one of those who want to build a huge base of connections on Facebook because you want to be a social media star, you are likely to accept anyone you even know vaguely, as a friend. Or accept any one who is a friend's friend. On the other hand, if you are using Facebook only to keep in touch with people you really know, or have known for some period of time, then you don't really care how small the number of connections you have on Facebook. You are then probably like me. And you have decided to keep Facebook at a very personal level to share the personal events in your life with a select few. I have 600 ( probably four times the ideal number ) odd friends on Facebook and I religiously deny connections with people I don't recognise, I have never met, or are friends of friends.

But my real insights into Facebook friendships came after I started writing on LinkedIn last year. Take my recent article where 3% of my viewers came from Facebook.

The article got 50,000 views and this means that at least 1500 people from Facebook saw it. Even if I assume that only 3% of those 1500 were my first level connections, that's a good 45 people who are my Facebook friends who read the article. But when I go through the list of likes for my article I didn't see a single Facebook friend on the list.

But every time I met my Facebook friends socially, they would tell me that I write very well, and that they read everything I write. But then LinkedIn analytics would always stump me. Because I didn't see a single 'like' on my posts coming from my Facebook friends. Instead almost all the 'likes' seem to come from people that I don't know or are my LinkedIn connections. Which meant that my LinkedIn connections were perhaps more appreciative of my writing than my Facebook friends. Which in turn, made me suspicious of my Facebook friends. Either they were being just polite about my writing, or they had in fact never read anything I have written.

Other kinds of friends

Maybe there is some similarity with musician friends. As you know music is a very strong binding force, and typically musicians become great friends after a few gigs. But the friendships I have found are transient. So you are great friends until you keep playing in the same band. They will invite you over and make you part of their social circle but once you drop out of a band or stop doing music with them, they are quite likely to drop you as a friend. (If they don't drop you, you may just have an endearing long term friendship going!) Of course it is well meaning and without any malice but you just seem to create a distance once you stop playing music together. That is quite similar to professional friends. Typically you are friends only until you work together. Which led me to the conclusion that you need more than one common thing to create friendships. I guess the Beatles are a good example of musician friendships falling out.

But generally the most long standing friendships I have had have always needed a binding glue which is made up of several things; more than one passionate common interest, maybe the wives are friends, or the children are friends, etc etc. And I truly believe that no one thing like music or Facebook can glue you together. Because the glue is not strong enough.

Are Facebook friends fake friends?

According to a study from Oxford University "There is a cognitive constraint on the size of social networks that even the communication advantages of online media are unable to overcome."

According to Dunbar of Oxford University, your brain can't handle too many friends. In fact, the average person has about four real ones, regardless of the number listed on their profile.To reach this conclusion, R.I.M. Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford and author of the study, examined a sample of 3,375 people in the United Kingdom ages 18 to 65. Some used social media regularly, while others did not. The participants who used social media were asked how many Facebook friends they could depend on during an emotional or social crisis, and the average response – which barely varied between age groups – was four. The average study participant, however, had 150 Facebook friends.

My own experience is that I don't need Facebook to keep in touch with my real friends. In fact our interaction on Facebook might be much less than our offline interactions. I speak to them a few times a week. I get over to their place for lunch or dinner. They come over. We enjoy the same things together. We spend weekends together.

Maybe there is a lesson here. Don't just rely on your Facebook friends. Make more calls. Pay more visits to people that you really love. Gift them on their birthdays and other special occasions. Because, after all, you can't have too many good friends. And according to Dunbar you can have only four friends. So real friends are something you must cherish. Consider yourself blessed if you have them!

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