How to Find Friends Online

By using Facebook, BlackBerry Messenger, Twitter and other social networking platforms, it has become much easier to connect with old friends and even find new friends in different parts of the world. However, the information age that we find ourselves in presents a problem in terms of friendship and the quality thereof. Although finding friends is easy, finding good ones is hard, which is why it is important to make the most of your online socializing.

The Problem of Making Valuable Friendship Connections Online

• Because of the abundance of personal information available to us, we have too much choice in expanding our friendship circles and we lose sight of the quality and value of friendships. Let’s face it, Facebook is a means in which we can learn more about others and it can shed light on a person’s situation in a multifaceted manner, but it can also be particularly damaging to our quality of life as it provides us with too much information about others.
• We are able to find friends quite easily by looking at who Facebook 'suggests' to be our friends. These 'suggestions' made by Facebook are often friends of friends and we may feel compelled to accept these friends on the basis of inquisitiveness. Yet, this is nothing more than mere inquisitiveness. We want to know who that person is and who your ‘mutual’ friends are. As with most technological platforms, social networking could be used in a much more meaningful manner and not to simply find friends.

Fostering Quality Relationships Through Mentorship

• The question we need to ask ourselves is: What we can do to create and foster online relationships which are beneficial to us and to others? E-mentoring is a relatively unexplored area for building relationships and can be used to do so much more than simply find friends. For example, there are many websites at the forefront of the e-mentoring movement and aim to bring people together and inspire them to achieve their business goals through online and offline mentoring and networking events. In this way, users are able to find new friends and share knowledge about small businesses.
• By using e-mentoring platforms, we can build relationships with others and share our knowledge with those who would benefit from it. E-mentoring systems focus on the social aspect of networking but also, more importantly, aim to inspire and motivate others through skills exchange. This is something that most social networking platforms do not aim to do.
• All-in-all, in an age where information runs raucous at our fingertips we need to learn how to bring meaning into our online relationships and learn how to find friends and create qualitative, valuable and meaningful friendships.