New York University recently held a "Facebook in the Flesh" seminar to introduce incoming freshman to the seemingly lost art of face-to-face conversation.
Web sites like MySpace, Friendster and Facebook promote the rapid acquisition of friends whose photos users may display on a page. New Web sites have emerged promising to provide friend decoys, eye-catching people who will help a user to attract even more friends. Collecting hundreds or even a thousand virtual friends is reportedly not uncommon.
According to Will Reader of Sheffield Hallam University in Britain, "Although the numbers of friends people have on these sites can be massive, the actual number of close friends is approximately the same in the face to face real world"—an average of five close friends (Christine Rosen, "More, but Not Merrier," The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 5, 2007).
Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, a friend sharpens a friend" (New Living Translation). The best way to sharpen a friendship is to be there, in person.
