Faux Friendship By William Deresiewicz Summary

William Deresiewicz wrote the passage called a “Faux Friendship” to shed light on the damage friendships have taken over the years. He states that “we live in a time when friendship has become both all and nothing at all” he uses this sentence to briefly explain what friendship means and how its been affected. Not only does he compare friendship to the 18th and 19th century but he also mentions that “were all on a first name basis, and when we vote for president, we ask ourselves whom we’d rather have a beer with.” Deresiewicz portraits the image of friendship as an ever lastly bond between two individual, however, he also states that social media has been the main cause of why friendship have failed. Through his own words he describe social
media “ Yet what, in our brave new mediated world, is friendship becoming? The facebook phenomenon, so sudden and forceful a distortion of social space, needs little elaboration”. He explains that facebook altered the meaning of friendship as you have have friends online but at the same time you can be alone.
To support his claim on friendship Deresiewicz compares iconic tv friendship to our society definition which he claims that Ross and Chandler wouldn’t interact as much as they did, however, they would just go online and post on each other walls. He states “The most disturbing thing about Facebook is the extent to which people are willing-eager-to conduct their private lives in public”. However facebook isn’t all bad as he later clarifies that social media allows people to communicate with those whom they have lost contact with and maintain communications. But he also tells his audiences to keep in mind the fact that face to face interactions will always have more sentimental value than technology. Lastly he leaves his audience a message “ We have given our hearts to machines, and now we are turning into machines. The face of friendship in the new century”.