And as for staying up to date on my friends lives… well I just do it the old fashioned way. Talking to them. We hear this bromide constantly from people in the

And as for staying up to date on my friends lives… well I just do it the old fashioned way. Talking to them. We hear this bromide constantly from people in the #DeleteFacebook movement, but it's facile. It is because it assumes that a "friend" on FB and a friend IRL are equivalent but they're not, and intelligent people know this. There are people in your life that you either want or need to passively keep up with rather than actively socialise or reach. I've been critical of Facebook's lack of privacy and other issues surrounding the company but I can't get too worked up about the danger of perpetuating passive/active friend distinctions because I think it exists outside of social media and is simply a reflection of the meatspace, and it's actually healthy to do.