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Comment by edgarvaldes | Hacker News Reader

Before any comment about "real friends" keeping in touch outside the social media, the second tweet:

>A friend I've known mostly online for 15+ years died this weekend. Our friendship started on an old gaming forum, but continued on Facebook.

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So you can't have 'real friends' that you met online? Hell, guess my wife is imaginary then, met her in 2005 online.

I think GP was saying that this story can be seen as evidence that a real friendship does not need face to face interaction to be valid.

I think the evidence in this post suggests that a real friendship needs to go beyond some curated communication system where some one else (or some algorithm) decides what you hear from each other. Otherwise you may miss significant events in each other's lives.

> curated communication system

yes. curated is the keyword.

fb used to be a legitimate communication system - you could write on walls, you could poke, you could do a lot of stuff with fb apps that solicits an immediate response.

fb today is not the fb of 2007. I know a lot of users grew up with fb but fb did not grow up with us.

You can meet them online, however, are they truly, honestly someone you care about if you don't ever contact them outside of facebook? Or wait passively for facebook posts to broadcast messages?

I assume that you met your wife in person before getting married - would you propose to her if the only way to contact and know her was through social media?

Who she didn't reach out to for months (years?) in any sort of personal way. They weren't friends, they were acquaintances, and it's not FB's responsibility to make sure she sees every update he sends out.

I have lifelong friends in meatspace that I don't talk to for months at a time as well. What make the online aspect any different?

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