Facebook has completely changed the way that young adults view relationships with each other. Even the simplest term of “friendship” has been completely altered because of this popular social networking site. If something as basic as friendship has changed, of course more complex relationships have changed as well. Some of these changes are good, some bad, it just depends on how you look at it.
The term “friend” used to be reserved for people with whom you not only knew, but at least occasionally saw and communicated with. Now, a facebook friend does not require you to be either. I have friends on facebook that I have never met before, but I’m friends with them because we went to the same school at some point in my life. When you get a friend request from someone, the question posed becomes not “why should I be friends with this person?” but instead “why not become friends with this person?” If they seem to be a relatively normal human being, and you don’t think the person in question will use the friendship to be creepy why not confirm them?
A facebook friend can also be someone you’ve met once or twice and will probably never see or talk to again. Or, it can be someone you knew a long time ago, and will probably never see or talk to again. Beginning to see the pattern? Someone you never see or talk to again does not fit the common definition of a friend, yet because of facebook, it is. Sometimes however, a facebook friendship is a way to keep the communication going, despite the fact that under other circumstances you would not have, which is when facebook becomes a good thing, in strengthening relationships. Too often, you become friends on facebook just because you can and still never communicate with one another again.
Now, the deeper meaning of relationships, and how facebook has changed them; the dreaded “relationship status”. You choose to be single, in a relationship, in an open relationship, married, engaged, or nothing. A simple status change and everyone knows about it. When you’re dating a person, and you become “facebook official” it means something different then just becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. It means everyone knows about it. It’s out there for the world to see, and there’s no turning back from that. The same goes for when those relationships end. Everyone knows, especially thanks to the blessed news feed, which tells everyone of changes in your life without them even having to put forth the effort of looking for the change.
Just yesterday, I became a victim of this by removing the “single” from my status. I was acknowledging the fact that I’m not taken, but I’m not really single per say either because I was dating someone. Because of this simple change in my profile however, I am no longer dating that person because it scared him, and he thought I was moving us into a different level of a relationship, when I truly just removed the word single.
Facebook makes it both easier and harder to maintain relationships. It makes the term of “friendship” so loosely defined that it hardly even bears significance anymore. It makes the complications of dating even more complicated. Yet we’re all addicted. We have no desire to stop using it because you will be shunned by the young adult world if you do. Everyone reaps both the benefits and consequences we sow on facebook, and takes the bad with the good we all love so much.