The Meaning of Friendship in a Social Networked World, by Alex Pattakos

In “The Meaning of Friendship in a Social Networked World,” Alex Pattakos illustrates his belief that social media is diminishing the quality of true friendship. Pattakos uses quotations from sources such as the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who believes in the importance of true friendship. Pattakos uses these sources, known by a diverse audience to make the readers believe that through social media connection, true friendship is dying away. He argues that through various social media sites such as, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn we are “transforming our modern-day notion of friendship.” The use of ethos helps Pattakos’ argument by crediting him of his beliefs.

Pattakos makes use of the film The Social Network about the founding of Facebook as an example of how social media relationships are vastly different than actual human contact relationships. Pattakos talks of the film’s tagline, which states, “you don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies,” (Pattakos 210) as he is depicting to the audience that on a social media website, an absurdly high friend count does not necessarily correlate with having as many true friends by the Aristotelian definition. The definition of friendship according to Aristotle is that the importance of true friendship is a determinant of meaningful living. He is arguing that the term “friendship” is used loosely in this online world people tend to live in. The notion of friendship Pattakos subscribes to is being lost as technology continues its exponential growth. Pattakos utilizes the musings of Aristotle to persuade the readers that philosopher’s concepts about the meaning of friendship no longer exist in today’s post-modern world. Aristotle states, “The de...

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... their own belief systems.

Although Pattakos identifies himself as a “techie,” he declares that he has his social media usage under control and that these forms of communication are not the driving forces in his personal life. He is trying to persuade the readers that social media needs to be deemphasized in most people’s lives. He depicts society as having turned away from the joy that true friendships bring the population and focused upon social media as a means of comfort when attempting to make new social connections. Pattakos aims to get the readers to realize that it is pertinent to get back the true joys friendships bring, by coming out of one’s comfort zone of being behind a computer or a handheld device. He is successful in persuading the audience of how social media is interfering with our real life social connections, by his usage of ethos and logos.