{34} An Unfriending Epidemic?

I can’t get on FB these days without seeing another status update from friends talking about how they have unfriended/been unfriended by someone over something.

Usually it’s political, which is unsurprising, but I’m also seeing people dumping those who are unsupportive of their situation, whether that is a disability or poverty or grief etc., no matter if that person is family or a long-time friend.

There is fear out there that people are isolating themselves from opposing viewpoints, or anything/anyone who argues with them. I’m sure that’s true for some folks, but I see a different dynamic, one that has taken a decade to become fully rooted in social networking online platforms.

From the beginning of the internet, social networking online has greatly expanded the number of people one can be friends with on any given day, widening the net from only those you might encounter on a day to day basis to, well, the whole wide world. Especially in an era where traditional social groupings (faith communities, large families, life-time residence in one location) are crumbling or have already disappeared, it’s actually hard to meet people outside of work and/or school, so connecting with a like-minded soul in India or Nigeria or Wisconsin via facebook (or tumblr or medium or whatever) is easier and, crucially, more immediately rewarding. Communication might be asynchronous, but that just means it is also constantly “in progress.”

For me, the result is that I have more than just a few local people to support me. Some of my closest friends I’ve only met f2f maybe once, or even never. My support network is large and extended, literally and figuratively, and is a thousand times more effective than any “real” (read: offline) social network I’ve ever had.

I think a lot of people are finding themselves in the same situation, and realizing that if someone is being mean to them or disrespecting them or supporting horrible things like racism, ableism, rape culture, or Trump…well, they just don’t need them around. There are more friendly fish in the sea.

The previous burden of connections we have with people, such as the fact that we are related to them or went to school with them or worked with them in the past, is just not as important anymore. I get that many people see that as a calamity — traditional units of human connection being uprooted! The horror! — but is it? Is it really? I can’t agree with that.

I see people finding and belonging to wide-reaching networks of individuals who genuinely support and care for them, who present opposing viewpoints with compassion and an open mind, or simply keep quiet out of respect when they know they have nothing to offer. They are contributing more to each other daily than the “acquaintances” of fate.

I remember as a young girl in the mid-1970s when my mother was really starting to invest herself in feminism. Aside from the few books on feminism she could grab, there was no way to connect with other like-minded women outside of “women’s bookstores” and YWCA consciousness-raising groups. Think about how it would feel to be able to connect with people who share your ideals maybe once a week, grab coffee with one or another of those people during a rare moment when you weren’t both working/busy, maybe carve out time for a phone call after dinner. Imagine knowing there were so many more people out there who shared your experiences and beliefs but having no way to reach out to them, other than by snail mail.

Imagine being a disabled person in a rural location, living with family because you have no choice, unable to leave the house often or at all, your family always around you. What if they do not share your political or religious beliefs? What if you are queer and they are homophobic? What if…?

More importantly, what if there was a way to find and truly connect with people who care about you, support you, and respect you? Wouldn’t you grab it and hold on tight to those precious kindred spirits? Doesn’t it make sense that eventually those people would be more valuable to you than those who disrespect you, who don’t sympathize with your struggles, who denigrate your very existence?

What I see in the connections on social network platforms like FB are people who otherwise would not even have much or any support network at all, who are realizing that the people they count on online are sometimes more valuable to them then an immediate family member or a high school friend or an old work colleague.

Perhaps it is an “epidemic” of unfriending, to some; personally, I see it more as an inoculation of unfriending, where people are taking steps to protect themselves from those who are harmful to them at some level.

The internet is more of a home for many of us than actual places we’ve lived.