Are You My Friend? (Opinion)

The parable of the good Samaritan is layered with meanings that aren’t readily apparent – class, race, hypocrisy, even business – but even the most casual reader gets this: Jesus broadened dramatically the definition of what it means to be a neighbor.

Instead of just people you choose to live near, Jesus provocatively insisted that the Old Testament commandment to love one’s neighbor applied to anyone who needed to be loved.

I think about that every time I get a “friend” request on Facebook, an activity I took up reluctantly in an attempt to be, as my husband would say, “hip to the jive.” (Yes, he really says that. A lot. But he has many fine qualities, so I consent to live with him anyway.)

Facebook has stretched the definition of friend to the thinnest of filaments: A friend is anyone who will click an onscreen button that says “Add Friend.” I find it hard to click “Ignore” because, well, someone might need my friendship.

I’m not going to name any names, but I’ve accepted some friend requests from people whom I would never have considered friends under my old, conventional definition – and have ended up enjoying the online interaction more than I expected to. (I’ve enjoyed everything about Facebook more than I expected to, but that’s damning with faint praise. I didn’t expect to enjoy it at all.)

While Facebook has broadened the definition of friendship, it has – for me anyway – also made it thinner. Quite a few of my Facebook friends are what I would formerly have called business acquaintances – people I only know through my job at Arkansas Business and who only know me as its editor. This can be flattering; I had a warm, fuzzy feeling as I accepted a friend request from a total stranger who saw that we had a mutual friend and felt she knew me because she reads my columns. But the fact that many of my Facebook friends are really business acquaintances means that everything I write on Facebook becomes an extension of the professional part of my life. I watch what I write. I try, as the marketing gurus advise, to be personable without being too personal, casual without being candid. I won’t be joining your “Jim Keet for Governor” group or your “Anybody but Jim Keet for Governor” group. I definitely do not tell my Facebook friends all the things I tell my “real” friends.

Yes, in theory, I could limit which of my friends sees various comments. But I’m the kind of person who accidentally hits “reply all” on e-mail when I shouldn’t. Besides, someone could copy my comments and distribute them to a much wider audience without my permission. It’s best if I just assume the whole world is watching. Those First Amendment rights to free speech and free press don’t mean I couldn’t get fired if I made a fool of myself on Facebook.

For people who work in regulated industries, the pitfalls can be much worse. As Assistant Editor Sam Eifling reported in his March 15 article on social media, bankers and stockbrokers have to be careful not to pitch products or make specific financial recommendations if they identify their employers anywhere in their social media. There could be regulatory repercussions, or worse. A banker told me a story about a young teller who complained on Facebook about a certain business that always made large cash deposits at a certain branch at a certain time of day. Uh, no. That could be disastrous.

The Facebook definition of friend also extends to what used to be known as “family.” I discovered the hard way that the same topics that are off-limits at family gatherings are also off-limits on Facebook. I developed a good rule of thumb, in person or online: Your relatives want you to know their opinions on politics and religion, but they don’t want to know yours. 

Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. E-mail her at [email protected].