Filed under: Internet, News, Social Software
Department of obvious research: Facebook isn't real life
You know those 15,274 friends you have on Facebook, MySpace and other social networks? We know you're going to find this hard to believe. But they're not actually your friends. Well, not close friends anyway. We know, it's shocking, but it turns out that if you asked 15,268 of them if you could borrow a car, odds are they'd say no.Well, while that may have seemed obvious to most of us, that didn't stop British psychologist Will Reader from conducting research on the topic. And he found that you probably have about the same number of close friends online as you do off. And 90 percent of your online friends will be people you've met in real life.
Where social networks excel is at making it easy to keep in touch with old friends and colleagues with whom you might otherwise lose touch. You might not send your casual acquaintance from 7th grade an email very often. But you might leave a message on his Facebook wall.
Reader found that face to face communication is essential in establishing trust in relationships. So even if you do make friends through social networks, often through friends of friends, you're only likely to become "close" friends if you meet in real life.
Keep in mind, this research relates to social networks. Reader's making no claims that you can't make good friends with people you meet online. He's just saying that it's unlikely you'll do it by frequenting MySpace.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
danielgreenb said 8:00AM on 9-12-2007
Funny.
The thing is, that even among your online friends there are closer friends than others.
My profile aggregator- 8hands calculate my friends from all networks and rank them by communication.
it's super cool cause I can see who my real friends are.
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Who Cares 2 Know said 5:11PM on 10-05-2007
that's real sad & amusing at the same time that you need the "profile aggregator- 8hands" on facebook to see who your "real" friends are!!!!
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