Think back to your childhood for just a moment. Ponder back to when you were 3, 4 or perhaps 5 to your earliest memories of being in existence. Think back to the friends you used to play with, whether they were at your place or down the road. Everyone has these memories, but in most cases you lose touch with all but a few of these people. But not anymore.
I was blown away yesterday when someone I knew from when I was 4 added me as a friend to their Facebook. They were only new to the medium and had seen me through a friend of a friend. In the normal scheme of things, you might have a 1 in a 1000 chance to bump into them if you lived in the same area still, but probably 1 in a 1,000,000 when I’ve moved 100km away. The Internet has changed all that. (It’s also a 1 in 1 chance that there is no hard evidence to support those probabilities.)
Now this is for a guy in his late 20s, where the technology for such things has only existed for a few years. What about children growing up with social networking and web 2.0. Where do friendships start and end? You could keep track with every friend you’ve ever met (that you wanted to keep tabs on). As long as they were on Facebook or Myspace or Bebo or whatever, and the services didn’t shut down, you’d never loose touch with anyone (accidents and death beside).
It almost seems a little too claustrophobic, but for me I like it. It’s good to know that people you used to play with growing up and who were there through those years is doing well. It’s nice to say hi and find out what has happened to them over the last ten years.Tags: Bebo, childhood, Facebook, friends, internet, MySpace
- [Image not archived: e20a24fcb2eb0f404e0dc4a907bf15f4]
@kissability said,
I like the point you make about kids of today growing up with social networking and web 2.0, it will be interesting to see how those friendships unfold virtually over the years!