500 friends, right at our fingertips

‘I  inboxed her”; “He updated his profile”; “She had it on her wall”;  “I added him as a friend”; “I saw it on her status update”; “Follow us on Twitter”; “Tweet it”.

This is the new language we hear when we sit on the train, the bus or the taxi or listen to the radio and TV. We hear it in our staff tea rooms or when we walk behind people in the mall. Those who are on Facebook or Twitter will recognise this language – the language of these wonderful social communication networks.

Ten years ago the size of the average person’s friendship circle would be about ten to 20 people. Today it is common for one person to have 500 friends. New technologies, like Facebook, have made this possible and have brought about a shift in the patterns of friendship, communication and human relationships.

Five hundred people to talk to at once; that is about the average size of a Sunday congregation.

Cellphones, computers and the Internet have opened up a wide range of means of communication which enable instant communication of words and pictures across vast distances. Never before was this even thought possible. I think it should be considered one of the wonders of the world because almost every day I am astounded about what is possible through technology.

There are many benefits in these new tools of communication: parents are able to communicate with and also see (through the Internet telephone utility Skype) their children who have gone to work or live abroad. Companies are able to hold conferences with people in different locations, and students are able to google (now a verb) documents and scientific journals and have these resources instantly at their disposal. One is able to follow events with up-to-the-minute updates on their progress, thanks to Twitter.

Often today, at the end of my conversations with people, they ask me: “Are you on Facebook?”  It means that they would want to pick up the conversation at a later stage again.

How are we using the new technology, like Facebook, which we have at our free disposal today? These very modern and smart technologies help us to respond to our fundamental desire to communicate and to relate to each other.

“This desire for communication and friendship is rooted in our nature as human beings to want to connect with others and to be part of a family,” Pope Benedict has noted. “That desire comes from God who desires to make all humanity one family. When we find ourselves drawn towards other people, when we want to know more about them and make ourselves known to them, we are responding to God’s call— a call that is imprinted in our nature as beings created in the image and likeness of God, the God of communication and communion.”

These words of Pope Benedict make us look at why and what we communicate via technology in a different way—a way that places responsibility on us to communicate with the purpose to unite.

Is this what we always do via Facebook? I have yet to join Facebook, but I often think, if I should have 500 friends to talk to at once, what would my message be?