I found our class discussion about Facebook very interesting especially in regards to what qualifies as a person as a “friend.” It seems somewhat ridiculous, yet there are varying degrees of friendship. For the most part I generally accept people I know as “Facebook friends.” And while we make joke about how now we are official friends because we are Facebook friends, there is a reality to it as well. It is as if Facebook “legitimizes” the relationship by making it official. It is also interesting in looking at how many friends people have. I know some people that have around over 500 friends, while others that simply have 50. What’s interesting is what the number of friends a person means. A person with a lot of friends could mean that they friend everyone they meet, in wanting to make many random friendship or to seem “cool” or maybe they just really have 500 friends. On the otherhand people with few friends could mean that they have a ‘higher standards” for what qualifies as a friend, that they do not use facebook really or that maybe they do not have a lot of friends.
I also thought it was interesting to think about how on facebook we can “create” an identity that we want. We can be who we want to be. We can put up the pictures that make us look best, due to cropping and such. We can say what we want about ourselves even if it’s not true.
All in all in looking at facebook and examining it even more it showed me how funny of a thing it truly is. I always find myself laughing at how ridiculous it is, but then two seconds later seeing what is new on there and what is happening with my friends.