{ Monday, April 23, 2007 }
Then you're a friend pruner.
My sister found this fascinating study by MSN done in 2003 on different kinds of friendship carried on in the UK, online and off, Time Pressured Brits Make 396 Friends In Their Life...But Lose 363 Of Them
- Friendship Cultivators -- friends mean a lot to them and they spend a significant amount of their time nurturing friendships. They're always arranging get togethers and are in constant touch with friends online and on the phone
- Friendship Pruners -- make and drop friends quickly according to how useful they are. Friendship Pruners name drop a lot -- they like to be seen to be in social contact with the 'in crowd'. They hate 'dead wood' so frequently prune names from their diaries, online buddy lists and mobile phones
- Friendship Harvesters -- tend to have a very wide circle of friends that they get in touch with on a seasonal basis. They're happy to leave long periods without contact and typically dedicate a set period of time every few weeks or months to a flurry of contact to keep up to date with friends' news and gossip
- Friendship Gatherers -- are quick to make friends but the least proactive at maintaining friendships. They gather friends wherever they go but are socially lazy and once friendship has been established they rely on the other party to keep it going. They often seek out Friendship Cultivators so they can ride on the back of their frequent social contact and arrangements.
LINK | 3:41 AM | TB
I find that fascinating, but I'm particularly interested in how different web sites encourage different *kinds* of friendships.
e.g. Facebook encourages you to keep in contact with people you already know, MySpace encourages you to add as many 'friends' as possible regardless of if you know (or want to know) them or not. Flickr is somewhere in the middle and encourages sharing with friends while making 'acquaintances' with similar interests.
I don't think most sites even consider the kinds of relationships people form when using them - it's usually just a matter of "we need an 'add friend' function".
Flickr is one of the few sites that does it well, allowing you to separate friends & family from other contacts. I wonder what percentage of 'contacts' end up becoming 'friends' though.
In the end, there's a limit to the number of real friendships you can maintain before people start getting pissed off because you don't have time for them.
Dom | April 23, 2007 4:44 AMThe friends/family/contacts feature is one of the most widely replicated features on Flickr, and it took some effort to put that together. I don't know if you were on Flickr really early, but we originally had a scheme whereby there was a hierarchy, which went something like: Acquaintance, Friend, Good Friend, Best Friend, Soul Mate. It was terrible (where do you put your Mom?) And access doesn't make *any* sense in a hierarchical model. Orkut ended up doing something similar there, but in the end we limited it to two groups, and one general group, thinking people would ask for more groups. They never did.
Caterina | April 23, 2007 10:02 AMHarvester. There is a newer (2006) study here:
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/press/content/presscentre/releases/2006/11/pr03754.mspx
Hey -- I asked for more groupings of contacts!
Meanwhile, I think I fall between harvester and gatherer. Where in the past I leaned much more heavily on the harvester side. My innate laziness now makes me more of a gatherer. A gatherer with the best intentions.
emdot | May 4, 2007 1:17 PMI believe I'm a "Friendship Cultivator",I value friendship more than anything in the world..I share my feelings with them..I take part in my friends sorrows and visa versa..I used to fight with my friends,argue with them,scold them,They do the same with me but end of the day we'll share our coffee and ice-cream..That is the way we are..I blessed with good friends...
sakthi | May 19, 2007 8:36 AMWhat a very interesting post. Considering that it takes all types of "friendship networkers" to actually make a network work, this poses some interesting challenges n'est pas? What "features" does a harvester need versus a cultivator perhaps?
Paul Sweeney | June 6, 2007 4:24 AM{ Post a comment }
I think I'm a "Friend Harvester" -- I definitely get in touch in flurries. You know those people who sigh that they're "bad at keeping in touch" and who feel guilty about it.
There was another study I linked to a while back which said that if you talk to your friends every day, you have significantly less stress and are calmer, happier and more fulfilled.
Caterina | April 23, 2007 3:57 AM