In a recent seminar, one of the boomer attendees brough up an excellent point regarding how the different generations view the concept of "friends" differently.  We were discussing some of Gallup's research where they conclude that an employee who has a "best friend" at work is 7 times more likely to be engaged in their job.  The boomer in our audience stated that he thinks it less likely that Boomer's would have a best friend at work because they may only have a few best friends in their lives.  His perspective was that young people have many more best friends than previous generations. 

This got me to thinking, how is social media and technology in general changing how we form and think about friendships.  Browsing on Facebook and Myspace will reveal many individuals who have hundreds, if not thousands, of friends in cyberspace.  Are these really friends?  To the myspace generation, these are as much friends as the people you sit next to at lunch.  Does this definitional change impact how these young people are forming friendships outside of cyberspace?  Do they have as many friends or best friends as their parents did?  It might actually be the case that this generation will have fewer "best friends" who will be replace by multitudes of cyber-friends. 

I'm not sure I have a handle yet on how I feel about this transition or even what it might mean to our workplaces and communities.  What I am certain of is that change is happening.  The very nature of how people interact with one another seems to have been changed forever by technology.  Not only do we type emails instead of talking to one another, not only has "chat" replaced phone calls, we are now learning to "tweet" on Twitter where we only have a few words to make our point. 

Contrary to the point our boomer friend made, it might be that boomers have more best friends than any other generation.  In fact, it might be that the days of having "best friends" are numbered.   

-Jason

Interesting thought.
I wonder if this will have an impact on how the cyber gen will determine if someone is trustworthy or not. Or, maybe, trustworthiness is not really an issue for the future.

I have several close cyber friends that I've developed a longer relationship with than with some of my brickfront friends. while those in the real world move away and we lose touch for lunch, my cyber friends and I keep in touch and argue about all kinds of things.

Thanks for the thought.