Friendship in the Contemporary Society (Essay Sample)

Friendship in contemporary society
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What does Friendship Mean in Contemporary Society?
The purpose of this reflection is to explore what friendship means in contemporary society. Harry Blatterer (2013) observes that a friendship is an intimate relationship, unlike those of familial relations, whereby there exists the distinguishing element of voluntariness (Blatterer, 2013: 436). This paper will argue that socio-cultural and technological change are continuously altering the concept of friendship by expanding upon its socio-cultural meaning (Blatterer, 2013). It argues further that friendship in modernity is focused more on quantity, individualism, and publicity instead of depth, trust, and privacy; making modern-day friendships shallower than traditional friendships.
Friendship has been illustrated as “a repository of trust” (Markus, 2007:13). According to Pahl (2002), in pre-modern societies, friendship primarily existed without being tied to social institutions such as family. Kinship relations were more formal. However, they have turned into “informal relations that are more casual, temporary and impartial” in the contemporary society (Chambers 2012:15). In modernity, trends like high rates of divorce and cohabiting are on the rise, implying couples can easily get in and out of a family relationship just like friends get out of friendship. In pre-modernity, family relations were more formal and permanent because people believed in social norms of weddings and marriage solidarity (no divorces). The flexibility offered by divorce and cohabiting trends allows people, especially couples, to change families, making family relations casual and temporary in modernity.
The model of friendship signifies something supportive and egalitarian during a period when social relationships are experiencing dramatic changes (Sharp 2013). It is a concept that has culturally regarded the aspects of “trust, loyalty, equality reciprocity and justice” as insignificant (Blatterer 2013: 9). Concepts of mutual trust within liberally picked and equal relations - in contrast to hierarchical relations of duty - bring forth the “pure relationship” (Holmes & Greco, 2011). Trust is significant in post-modernity relationships, because it offers the other party assurance and a sense of dependability (Gandhi, 2003). According to Markus (2010), freedom is one of the central tenets in modernity, although the freedom and independence of others make personal choices hard to make, escalating the need for trust. The notion of camaraderie, therefore, is about not only securing intimate, equal relationships, but also trust (Markus 2010). Markus further notes that the potential interactional model triggers “the gap between the individual elements of trust and the abstract forms of friendships” in modernity (Markus 2010: 29).
Budgeon (2006) asserts that the notion of ‘the personal’ is a vital field of mutual exchange needed in the same terms and defined by friendship. The friendship perception, therefore, has almost entirely positive implications, demanding a sense of optimism about transforming personal relationships in late modernity (Budgeon, 2006). It is in this regard that the technological changes, like the evolution of social network sites, have assumed the term ‘friendship’ to symbolize online contacts (Ellison, Steinfield & Lampe 2007).
Social network sites like Twitter and Facebook recognized that the apparent casualness, sociability, and flexibility of friendship concept are highly regarded and sought-after aspects of personal affiliations in today’s society (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007). When one joins social media, they have the option to “unfriend”, “block”, “remove contact” or “unfollow” their online contacts. Such options symbolize the temporality and flexibility of online relationships (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe 2011).
According to Sharp (2013), modern digital technology has weakened the positive characteristics of mutual disclosure, solidarity and respect that hold the concept of friendship together. He further adds that friendship in the contemporary social systems is much different from the traditional perception (Sharp 2013). For example, friendship in post-modernity has no privacy, with friends publicizing and displaying all their personal, private and intimate aspects of their alliance in social media (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe 2011). In my opinion, traditional friendships were about quality and the main aim was to have few but trusted friends. However, the concept of online relationship has changed all the focus from quality to quantity, with people competing on who has the most friends, likes, and comments. The concept of friendship in modernity has, therefore, changed its focus from depth to numbers (Ellison, Steinfield & Lamp 2011). This implies that online friendships define one’s self-identity due to the overreliance on others for recognition.
While online friendships are regularly considered as elements of today’s globalized networks, this new concept offers a significant cultural framework for people to discover the sense of diversity and choice pursued in personal relationships (Gandhi, 2003). For example, in real life, it is normal to lose friends as people’s interests in each other fade, others lose contact while others get into unresolvable conflicts. Such endings of friendships, although painful, happen in private and have a profound reason. However, in online friendships where one logs in only to find that they have been ‘unfriended’ or blocked for no reason, can be upsetting. It is even worse because this happens brusquely in a click of a mouse within the public domain.
The concept of friendship entails the dramatization and management of the self and comprises the amassing of ‘social capital’ (Reynold, 2007). It gives solidarity in times where individualism, a high level of commercialization of social relations, and the necessity to cultivate democracy can cause a conflict (Blatterer, 2013). As Reynolds (2007) explains, it does so by evoking a sense of personal choice and individual control, which acts as a part of fostering the need for democratic, pure relationships.
Friendship in modernity is shaped by moral elements connected to the choice of medium used to link up with someone, the magnitude of intimacy and the nature of the message (Holmes & Greco 2011). It can be described as a form of ‘entrepreneurial individualism’ where friends seek to be liked and not loved and to “do things with their friends and not for their friends” (Blatterer 2013: 450). The traditional normative egalitarianism of friendship has been limited by such barriers, and led to a rise of new companionship orders where terms like &...