friends

I Get By With a Little Help From My "Facebook" Friends

Submitted by Kari Dunn Saratovsky on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 13:21

Yesterday I came across this charming video in which Graham Smith and his buddy Josh Baron set out on a Facebook road trip for a thesis project. The two traveled more than 1,800 miles in less than a week to explore how the friends made over a lifetime were more than a series of updates on Facebook. What Graham uncovers through this little exercise, is that communication through digital means can at times be limiting.

As he explains it, “Before Facebook they were friends that were starting to fall to acquaintances and acquaintances that were starting to fall to strangers. But when I reconnect with them they start to become a little bit more. This trip has really led me to see that these people I’ve lost contact with aren’t a series of updates and bits of information on a computer. They’re actually people living their lives.”
 
As we explored in an earlier post “What do all these friends add up to anyway?” we may be broadcasting our lives more efficiently than ever before, but more often than not, we still have the same small circles of intimacy that we’ve always known.
 
While at times akward, and at other times sentimental and funny, there's no doubt this video will make you think about your own social graph. Have you or would you ever take a social network roadtrip? What would you be most excited to explore and find out?
 
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