Is Social Media the End of Friend Nostalgia?

Unlike those under 25, I didn’t grow up with Facebook in my face and my head pummeled with tweets and whistles of notification services and microblogs. I played in mud and sand and helped do my part to keep the laundry soap market in business like all kids into the 80′s. I lost friends when I moved, I made new ones. Over time my social circles changed. Like everybody else. I wondered from time to time about my high-school girlfriends and regular mates. It was nice to have a beer with the friends I’d stayed connected with, the two or three of them, and reminisce for a few minutes with a laugh or a groan.

Now, I’ve reconnected with most of them on Facebook or LinkedIn. Now I know all about what happened to them, who went to pot, who fell off the wagon who did amazing things. Kids today start connecting on various social networks at around 5 or 6 years old.

They will likely never know the bittersweet nostalgia of the natural process of losing friends and acquaintances. Sure, finding an old friend can also be wonderful and rewarding.

But before Facebook and Classmates and all these ways of reconnecting, there was a certain part of ones character that developed with these losses. Chances are, that will be less likely (at least in wealthy nations with prevalent Web usage.) What might be the ramifications? It will require a new set of etiquette behaviours for certain.

How do you think it might evolve?

(Author: G. Crouch, Principal)