Electronic Relationships

A new type of relationship has emerged in society.

 
Due to the domination of social media, we have developed a new way of interacting and forming relationships with other people. This type of relationship has been denominated 'electronic relationship'.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter allow us to have a countless amount of  'friends' we can interact with.

If we analyse the word friend, we will find that its definition (according to thefreedictionary.com/friends) is:
"A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts."
In many cases, social network users don't know the people they are friends with on their profile and consequently, are unable to like them or trust them. Simply because you can't like or trust someone you haven't met before.

Social networks allow its' users to display what they desire on their profiles.
In most cases, users opt to output their best side as opposed to the 'real them', showing their strengths, and hiding their flaws. You might think you like someone, but they could only be showing you what you want to see and not the real person they are.

Electronic relationships are also making it difficult for us to differentiate our strong ties from our weak ties.
It's creating a confusion, almost erasing the line between those who are close to us, to those who are acquaintances rather than genuine friends. Social Networks give us the opportunity to interact with people equally, no matter how often we see them, or how close they are to us. If they are on-line we can interact.

That seems to be driving us to relate more with acquaintances we aren't close with,  instead of  interacting with the people we really care about.