Academic

More on Facebook and Friendship

By Jacqueline Lipton

Further to a post I made the other day about the nature of "friends" on Facebook being more like imaginary friends from childhood than real flesh and blood people, I noticed an interesting article online last night from Newsweek.  In the article, a number of sociologists were interviewed describing the benefits of Facebook contacts over face-to-face or telephone contacts in particular circumstances, such as bereavement at the loss of a family member.  The article shows that, although in some circumstances, a Facebook contact cannot replace the real world support of a face-to-face contact, in other circumstances, Facebook lessens the burden of a multitude of time-consuming and emotionally draining individual contacts during difficult times.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on June 18, 2009 (boomark / email).