I dont feel you deserve to be voted down on this comment... I actually think your statement - while ultimately needing more argument behind it - is actually tr

I dont feel you deserve to be voted down on this comment... I actually think your statement - while ultimately needing more argument behind it - is actually true of just about all of the analysis I read these days. It's all thoroughly atavistic - without a particularly well explained explanation as to what exactly is the value of the thing being lost. This article is actually better than most... but it's not great. It intimates that the strength of friendship comes from the intimacy that allows for critique as well as support. But then the author goes on to focus on the elements of social networking which are actually entirely compatible with the account of friendship that he praises - namely the drop in signalling costs associated with online social networking. Backward looking authors such as these are usually confused in this way - they fret over the seeming 'cheapness' of online social networking - but confuse this with the corresponding superficiality of those relationships. To dispel this confusion I like to use the following analogy. Back when were apes - we used to signal allegiance by grooming - an expensive and time consuming activity. Now imagine that we developed language within the space of generation (not true - but bear with me) - imagine what the grand parents would have thought of their grandchildren signalling to each other cheaply to one another using language. they would have thought it cheap - and insincere. But of course - the use of language in and of itself is not constitutive of a shallow relationship. What they would be reacting to is a sudden drop in the cost of signalling - and would mistrust it because of the costs that they were used to. The upshot is that there is nothing essential in the nature of social networking that leads to a lack of intimacy. You can't blame the tech here. Having said that - there is a danger posed to intimacy by some of the uses being made of the tech. But it will come from the ability to trade out your established intimacy for economic reward.