As for extending and deepening our relationships, this is a debatable claim. I am not suggesting it isolates us – quite the opposite: we live in a world if information overload, where it is challenging to maintain valuable connections with everyone whom we have available to us. I would like you to specify which ‘all other studies’ you refer to. Would this be the work of my co-author danah boyd, or perhaps my colleagues at Michigan State or UIUC who have published on this. I’m more than aware of said work. The thesis is that interfaces do not allow for reliable perception of offline social contexts and groups. This is in keeping with previous work such as boyd’s thesis of collapsed contexts.

Finally, there is no use in debating whether a Facebook friend is a real friend or not. All friends have various qualities. Friends on Facebook signify access to content. Some may be more, but many are not. It is simply a way of being semi-public.

Secondly, the suggestion that this “limits the development of more meaningful relationships” is actually the reverse of all other research findings to date, which confirm that Facebook and other social networks help us extend and deepen our relationships much further.