I was put off by the title of this article, and I can’t believe the author said “the long tail of friendship,” but it sums up my opinion of Facebook pretty well.
I am one of those “assholes” who will delete friends if I think we’ve lost touch. In fact I think it’s essential for me if Facebook is going to retain it’s importance. Facebook, as much as they hate to admit it, is a private network and people love it for that. It’s users feel comfort in the fact that they can put up embarrassing photos of themselves without everyone and his dog seeing them. It’s why there has been so much uproar over privacy.
I like the idea of old friends fading with age over time, but I’d actually go a step further.
What if you had to maintain a reasonable level of contact through Facebook in order for the friendship to remain in tact? Ok they’ll never do this, but it would mimic the real world much more accurately.
