Friendship in Ancient World and Virtual Community

Aristotle evidently states that friendship is a virtue and is necessary for our existence. It is not possible to live without friends nor would we want to (Pakaluk, 30). Aristotle talks about three different kinds of friendship which are based on utility, pleasure, and goodness. Friendships that are based on utility are likely to fade away fast because they are out to achieve something good for themselves through the other person and once that is accomplished or taken away then friendship is lost (Pakaluk, 32). Friendships based on pleasure work comparable to the ones based on utility. Once the pleasure is gone or no longer needed the friendship could expire. Lastly, those who love for goodness, reflect one another and want the same greatness for each other. Friendships that are genuine and true are based on this quality and usually have a long lasting presence.

From the research question we asked, “What percent of your Facebook/Social Media friends do you consider your friends outside the social media?” and the majority of people considered more than half of the Facebook friends to be friends outside of the virtual world. But if I had to say, I would relate some of these friendships based on what Aristotle describes as the three types of friendships. Another question that we asked was “What percent would you go out with or share a secret with?” Our results were interesting because only a few would go out with their Facebook friends and hardly any would share a secret with. I believe there would have to be more research conducted to actually get to the roots and see what kind of levels of friendship there really are.

In the social media world, I consider only a very few on my friends to be “real friends” but of course all of t...

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...r utility or pleasure.

I believe that it is hard to define online friendships and compare them to real life friends. In other words, are Facebook friends really your friends outside of social media? And I would say not so much. Some of our data proved that most of the people that took the survey say that they are friends outside of social media so I’m order to get more answers we would have had to ask some different questions.

So that leads us to, “What is the true meaning of friendship?” Aristotle says that friendship is equality, similarity, reciprocated goodwill, and a virtue. All these values can be found on social media but I believe something is missing and can only be found in real life friendships. Sometimes people are not real and do not show their true colors via social media. That can only truly be seen in the world we are present in, not a virtual one.