How Well Do You Really Know Your Facebook Friends?

At the moment it seems that you can't escape a designated 'day' on social media celebrating friendship or the sisterhood! We've had Girlfriends Day, International Friendship Day, Sisters Day, and coming up soon Best Friends Day.

At the moment it seems that you can't escape a designated 'day' on social media celebrating friendship or the sisterhood!

We've had Girlfriends Day, International Friendship Day, Sisters Day, and coming up soon Best Friends Day.

But how is this supposed to make you feel if you don't have any actual pals or girlfriends to celebrate it with? Or maybe you do, but they are the other side of the country and you can only communicate intermittently through Whatsapp - sad times.

The facts

One thing is for sure the friends you make on Facebook don't equate to the number you have in unfiltered, everyday life.

You know what I mean. We've all had the experience of being completely ignored by a 'Facebook friend' in the street. And of course receiving a 'friend' request from a complete (and usually pervy) stranger.

Writing for Forbes earlier this year; app expert Amit Chowdhry looked at how, though many of us have a significant number of friends on Facebook, we don't interact with them in real life. Nor would many of them be there for us in a crisis, I'm talking about when you are experiencing high level relationship drama!

Amit says in his article: Younger users are likely to have more Facebook friends, but older users tend to have more friends in real life. That is because social media encourages "promiscuous 'friending' of individuals who often have very tenuous links".

In my opinion when it comes to friendship you don't want tenuous links, you want inappropriate in-jokes and lots of them!

Making friends

But if social media is the problem, what is the solution?

By all means I advocate going out and talking to strangers but some people just aren't that way inclined, or just remember what they were told about strangers when they were little.

So maybe you can use technology to your advantage when it comes to making some new best buds.

There is no question that dating apps have soared in popularity over the last few years. Internet dating used to be something that people whispered about. Now everyone is quite open about it - I know I am. The breaking news is, people are now using apps to make friends too. Which is surely much easier than hunting down a potential new boyf.

Leading the way is the app Huggle, which helps users find friends based on the places they have been recently and their common interests. So if you've just been to a gig you will be able to find someone on Huggle who was there too.

The aim is you then bond over this shared experience (or your shared likes) and potentially meet up and make friends.

There is common sense behind this idea. If I was looking for a new mate I wouldn't be compatible with someone who wanted to go out partying every night. My mum life and pathetic lack of energy would mean I would be rubbish at maintaining a friendship with a party girl. However if there was a fellow mum on Huggle with a penchant for sarcasm, lots of caffeine and Michael Buble, I would certainly be keen on the idea of meeting up for a coffee date.

So though social media may be decreasing our chance of making true bff's the social side of friendship apps will hopefully be counteracting it. Bet you are excited about the inappropriate in-jokes you are going to have with your new best buds!

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