On Facebook and Quantum Friendship Cats

I would like to share with you some of my thoughts on the nature of friendship and how it relates to quantum theory.

I believe the widespread adoption of facebook has fundamentally altered the nature of social interaction -- if not for everyone, at least among facebook users. This is not a controversial position.

Not my image -- source unknown

Readers are hopefully also aware of Shrödinger's cat. The idea is that the theoretical quantum cat, hidden inside of a box, is simultaneously both alive AND dead... until we open the box, look inside, and see for sure that it is either alive OR dead, but not both.

Now, traditionally, friendships were like plants. They waxed with interaction and waned for lack of it, and you didn't really consider people your friends if you hadn't seen or heard from them in years.

But there was a quantum cat aspect also, the idea that our friendships are both form and substance, and thus could be theoretically both alive and dead. Who hasn't reconnected with a long-absent somebody and felt as if the mutual bond was as strong as ever, as if no time had passed and nothing had changed? On the other hand, who hasn't also walked away from such an encounter with the recognition that you had both gone your separate ways and weren't friends anymore except for your common history?

That is to say, we're all willing to believe in potential friendships with people who used to be our friends but we're no longer in touch with -- such people are effectively both friends and not friends, at least until the next time we kick it with them and find out for sure.

Facebook redefines friendship. It removes geographical obstacles; it makes it simpler and easier to keep others informed of our own personal news and thoughts. Most importantly, it caters to our optimism with regard to our various quantum friendship cats -- indeed, facebook assures us, "Yea, though ye be separated by years and miles, YOU ARE STILL FRIENDS!"

With facebook, we need never say goodbye. We can take hundreds or even thousands of friends with us on our life's journey, and all along the way facebook confirms that those quantum friendship cats are alive and doing fine.

But there is a price to be paid -- when it's that much easier to bump into an old acquaintance, if we aren't careful, if we get too personal, facebook can steer us into an examination of what turns out to be a dead friendship, instigating fallings-out that spoil our fond remembrances and forever kill the blissful potential of that unopened friendbox.

The point of all this isn't to assert that post-facebook friendship is better or worse than traditional friendship. I believe facebook is a social mirror of sorts, a lubricant, a facilitator, a catalyst... it has had and continues to have many profound effects, both good and bad.

The question here is: are we happier with potential friendships or actual ones? To put it another way, are we really better off knowing where we stand with people, even when it means replacing the illusion of mutual affection and harmony with the bitter reality of a broken friendship? Or does this, in the end, only serve to make us more lonely?