Is true friendship dying away
无论总是造句-成长感悟作文600字
Is true friendship dying away?
By Mark
Vernon
Updated 7262010 5:55 PM | Comments 64
| Recommend 28
文章来源：
http:sopinionforum201
0-07-27-column27_ST_
To anyone paying
attention these days, it's clear that social media
— whether Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn or any
of the countless other modern-day water coolers —
are
changing the way we live.
Indeed,
we might feel as if we are suddenly awash in
friends. Yet right before our
eyes, we're also
changing the way we conduct relationships. Face-
to-face chatting is
giving way to texting and
messaging; people even prefer these electronic
exchanges
to, for instance, simply talking on
a r circles of friends are being
partially
eclipsed by Facebook acquaintances routinely
numbered in the hundreds.
Amid these smaller
trends, growing research suggests we could be
entering a period
of crisis for the entire
concept of friendship. Where is all this leading
modern-day
society? Perhaps to a dark place,
one where electronic stimuli slowly replace the
joys
of human contact.
Awareness of a
possible problem took off just as the online world
was emerging.
Sociologist Robert Putnam
published the book Bowling Alone, a survey of the
depleting levels of
The pattern has been
replicated elsewhere in the Western world. In the
United
Kingdom, the Mental Health Foundation
just published The Lonely Society, which
notes
that about half of Brits believe they're living
in, well, a lonelier society. One in
three
would like to live closer to their families,
though social trends are forcing them
to live
farther apart.
Typically, the pressures
of urban life are blamed: In London, another poll
had
two-fifths of respondents reporting that
they face a prevailing drift away from their
closest friends. Witness crowded bars and
restaurants after work: We have plenty of
acquaintances, though perhaps few individuals
we can turn to and share deep
intimacies.
American sociologists have tracked related trends
on a broader scale, well
beyond the urban
jungle. According to work published in the
American Sociological
Review, the average
American has only two close friends, and a quarter
don't have
any.
Shallow friendships
It should be noted that other social
scientists contest these conclusions. Hua Wang
and Barry Wellman, of the universities of
Southern California and Toronto
respectively,
refer to panic in the United States about a
possible decline in
social
connectivity.
same as intimate friendship.
While social networking sites and the like have
grown
exponentially, the element that is
crucial, and harder to investigate, is the quality
of
the connections they nurture.
Yet we know that less is more(物以希为贵) when it
comes to deeper relationships. It
is lonely in
the crowd. A connection may only be a click away,
but cultivating a good
friendship takes more.
It seems common sense to conclude that online
nurtures shallow relationships — as the
neologism friending（加为好友） itself
implies.”
It is striking that loneliness should be
regarded as a mental health issue, and that
seems right. At least since the ancient
Greeks, it has been recognized in our political
philosophies that we are social animals.
Aristotle was just one thinker to remark that
an individual could have everything that life
can offer — career, family and money —
but if
a person didn't have a good friend, his or her
life would be fundamentally
lacking. A society
that thwarts opportunities for deeper sociality,
therefore, stymies
well-being.
No
single person is at fault, of course. The
pressures on friendship today are broad.
They
arise from the demands of work, say, or a general
busyness that means we have
less quality time
for others. How many individuals would say that
friendship is the
most important thing in
their lives, only to move thousands of miles
across the
continent to take up a better-paid
job?
It starts with childhood
Of
course, we learn how to make friends — or not — in
our most formative years, as
children. Recent
studies on childhood, and how the contemporary
life of the child
affects friendships, are
illuminating. Again, the general mood is one of
concern, and a
central conclusion often
reached relates to a lack of what is called
time.
Structured time results from the way
an average day is parceled up for our kids —
time for school, time for homework, time for
music practice, even time for play. Yet
too
often today, no period is left unstructured. After
all, who these days lets his child
just wander
off down the street? But that is precisely the
kind of fallow time so vital
for deeper
friendships. It's then that we simply hang
out,with no tasks, no
deadlines and no
pressures. It is in those moments that children
and adults alike can
get to know others for
who they are in themselves.
If there is a
secret to close friendship, that's it. Put down
the device; engage the
person.
（培养亲密友谊的法宝就在于此---摘下面具，与人交往）
Aristotle had an attractive expression to
capture the thought: close friends, he
observed, salt 's not just that they sit
together, passing the salt
across the meal
table. It's that they sit with one another across
the course of their
lives, sharing its savor —
its moments, bitter and sweet. The desire for
friendship
comes quickly; friendship does
not,
age of instant social connectivity, though
one in which we paradoxically have an
apparently growing need to be more deeply
connected.
Mark Vernon is a writer and
honorary research fellow at Birkbeck College in
London.
He is the author of the new
book The Meaning of Friendship.
Comments:
RealtorRoy (0 friends, send message) wrote:
10202010 2:27:24 PM
I saw 4 or 5 kids sitting
at a table and noticed that even though they were
at the same
table, they were not talkiing to
each other. I realized they were all TEXT
MESSAGING each other . What is this world
coming to ? lol
Pooh Bah (4 friends, send
message) wrote: 7302010 8:19:54 AM
The end of
Faux-Friendships is glad tidings! This development
is a chance to get
serious about who real
friends are and to recognize that a long list of
people is not a list of close friends, just a
list of networking entanglements.
The
Mick (73 friends, send message) wrote: 7282010
9:18:54 PM
Every time I add a new friend of
Facebook, several mutual acquaintances who are
friends with that friend want to be friends.
Friendship seems to have become a more
remote
notion.
abby1957 (12 friends, send
message) wrote: 7282010 6:49:18 AM
I am
constantly made fun of because I limit my Facebook
friends to my family - it's
been wonderful for
keeping up with those living a great distance from
me - my friends
where I live have to actually
talk to me face to face.
I have actually
had people get really angry because I don't
'friend' them. I really don't
care if I'm your
500th friend.
DHanley61359 (0 friends,
send message) wrote: 7282010 2:23:49 AM
If
true friendship dies it is your own fault, period.
Cell phones, text messaging have
allowed me to
be in contact with my Bestest Friend way more
often. We have realized
that things like
facebook are indeed negative for developing
friendship and are often
only just a front for
silly games and emotionless dribble. We have
turned off the
computers, taken more walks and
exercise together regularly. Cell phones and text
messaging allows us to keep the positive in
each other lives by saying we care, we
love,
we make each other laugh. True friendship is not
dead or dying. You are
willingly committing
murder. Turn off technology and hug a true friend.
Talk, listen,
love and care. I am closer to my
BFF because we realize things like Facebook don't
help real friendship. I can be with her when
she needs me, even if it is just a hello on
the phone or a text message that says I love
you. Facebook is nothing more than
meaningless
dribble. It does nothing to endorse true
friendship. It is all about I have
more
friends than you, what does your underwear say
about you, and what is your
favorite sex
position. Turn off the computer and take a walk
with a true friend.
Oversanitized (10
friends, send message) wrote: 7272010 6:01:16 PM
This article is saying what I've been feeling
since tech talk hit its stide. It's one of the
reasons why I refuse to text, tweet, twitter
etc. Talk 2 me on phone or in person. All
the other stuff just leads to
superficial non-speak. 90% of all that tech talk
is irrelevant
anyway. a HUGE waste of time.
cantor2537 (0 friends, send message)
wrote: 7272010 7:28:13 PM
This is exactly why
I don't text. I have a FB account which I barely
go on. Most of the
other people I know who are
on FB have hundreds of
show off about their
popularity (when in actual fact everybody knows
you only talk to
4 or 5 of them on a regular
basis, if that). I am 30, grew up in the tech age,
but texting
is so not personal that I just
don't do it. If someone sends me a text, I call
them back.
How hard is it?
……