Are Your Facebook Friends Fake? Research Says 'YES'

Ever since I created my Facebook account, I have stopped making friends – I ‘add’ them now a days!

Did you get the difference?

So…you can relate to this as well. We all have done this at some point of time or another or are still doing it. Increasing number of friends in our profile is someway a boost to our confidence. We start comparing our friends list with that of others and take pride in mentioning that we have hundreds of friends in Facebook. Teenagers compete with one another – there are people who have more than 5000 friends in ‘added’.

Can anyone actually have 5000 friends in real life? How will you speak to your friends – how will you hangout with them? In the real world, I actually do not know anyone who has 5000 friends. How do we manage to make so many friends in Facebook?

Real-Life Friendship and Facebook Friends:

There is plenty of difference – in fact, of my 350 Facebook friends, I actually have 20 real friends. These are the people I interact with – but that too not everyday. What about my other friends. Are they real friends or fake? Aren’t friends supposed to be interacting?

Facts About Facebook Friends:

In the recent times, a lot of research is being conducted on the nature of Facebook friends and the psychology behind having innumerable friends in Facebook. Here are some interesting facts revealed by the research:

• Friends are added as a status symbol. The more friends you have ( better, if opposite sex), the more acceptable you are socially.
• Even if you have a few friends they actually do not care. They wouldn’t even sympathize with your problems.
• In spite of having so many friends, how many friends would you actually depend on?
• Many people add friends to increase the count of their likes and comments.
• Several boys add girls not to be friends, but simply to have access to their photographs, videos and updates.
• Many people add friends without even checking profiles. It is known that many of these profiles are created newly without any relevant information or sometimes even with wrong information.
• The irony is that even if one such so called friend is ‘unfriended’ no one misses their presence.

Does this happen in real life? If you do not see or speak to your good friend for long, wouldn’t you miss him/her?

All these are a good indication that most of our friends in Facebook are actually fake. The fact remains that our social network friends can never be dependent upon.

Many people believe that they fail to interact with their friends because they are busy. Communication is a problem and they do not find time. Is it true? I believe, if you are having time to check or access your Facebook profile, why wouldn’t you have time to interact with your friend?

Lack Of Communication – Is it a good reason?

Social network provides us ample opportunities of communication. There are several chatting apps available and messengers where communication is simple. In spite of such easy communication, why does one not have any contact Facebook friends? The reason is simple – your friends are fake, they have nothing to talk about. Either they make friends to check out your photographs, your videos or simply to track what you are doing. It is just a matter of curiosity – something which they would love to know about it.

How Much Do You Know Your Facebook Friends

This is just for you – if you have 100’s of Facebook friends, this test is for you. Visit the profile of some of your friends and try to know more about them. How much do you know the person? In spite of sharing every detail about your life, do you actually know how your friend is doing?

Friendship Of Fantasies:

Facebook friendships are said to be a relationship of fantasies. It is a foolish trap and when we make so many friends in a social network, we are getting stuck in a vicious cycle. It creates a psychological imbalance in us. We start living in a fake world which is rules by likes and comments. Friends who ‘LIKE’ your profile pictures and status updates are understood to be real friends.

Facebook has changed the meaning of friendship

In fact, it is said that over the last few years, Facebook has actually change the definition of real friend. Facebook has turned friendship into a superficial online game, where everyone is simply running to acquire fake online friends. It is something we all know and understand, but still we seek such friendships.

Do not get involved into this vicious cycle. Make friends and simply do not ‘add’ friends for the sake of increasing your friends in the social network.

It’s the time to be real and enjoy our friends around us.