Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What?! You too? I thought I was the only one!”

I often see people walking the street and talking while keeping their smartphones in front of them, at arm’s length, and not close to their ears. It is weird. I know, some of them are afraid of the microwaves emitted by their phones, they are afraid that they might get a brain cancer. Then, there are those who are video chatting with someone, perhaps from a distant country (perhaps from the next door), and they need to see each other. And then, there are the typical folks who just enjoy to show off, those who seek admiration or some moments when they feel important, attracting the views of the surrounding passers-by. You feel “cool” when you talk to someone like this; this means that you are sufficiently important and more, the other one needs to see you, not only to hear you. And obviously, you need to do this in public, noisily, so as to be seen and heard by everyone else, annoying others in the process.

For some time however, I hear some neighbors arriving at home and talking while climbing the stairs. Typically, there isn’t anyone with them on the stairs, so it’s not an attention-seeking behavior. No, people do this on a daily basis, they are in constant discussion, in a constant exchange of words because – I imagine – if you talk a lot every day, you can’t be in a constant exchange of ideas…

Yes, people talk too much. And they are too noisy. Or… am I too old, have I forgotten how it was to be young and “socially active”?

I am a man of a lot of words and of a lot of thoughts, both spoken and written. Yet, after a while, it is superfluous to talk all the time. Introverted or not, it is simply too much. How can someone be in constant conversation, almost permanently connected?!?

Well… these are the so-called “Millennials” and the generation after them… I have no idea how they call themselves. One of the differences between them and my generation is that they are perpetually connected to someone, they are in constant exchange and have been described as interactive. They collaborate and communicate. They have hundreds of online “friends” and perhaps many more “followers”. They live on social media, they “breathe” social media, they are defined rather by an “online” identity and less by a “real” individuality. They’re the kind of women who would spend hours with do-it-yourself make-up videos and the kind of men who would fight many battle-royales in gaming virtual warzones. They have a rather vague idea about reality and an even harder time being alone, disconnected from “the server”, being “offline”. Belonging to something – ideologies/activism such as “the right”, “the left”, “the greens”, the LGBTQ+ community, etc. – they are members of something, they adhere to something and they lose (or occupy) their time with something.

In an era of the “attention economy”, they know how to navigate and how to… “stay relevant” and “up-to-date”.

Is it good or bad to be this way?

I don’t know!

They belong to a different world and to a different generation, and it is hard to judge them because they must face different challenges. They have inherited a different world, they grew up in a different environment and perceive things differently.

And yet… you can’t quite have quality and quantity at the same time…

You can’t stay connected all the time and then tell me that you develop deep relationships; you simply cannot do it simultaneously!

What I suspect is that what I understand by “friendship” is different from what these people understand by the same word. I guess that for them, knowing a lot about each other (after hundreds of hours of talking you inevitably get to know the other quite well) means to be good friends, but it is probably at the equivalent emotional depth of an “acquaintance” for me, practically a stranger with whom I share an amount of information and that’s all. There is a vague idea about some common values but nothing more and – as it’s the custom these days – the less you know about somebody, the healthier and better your relationship is, since “being too personal” tends to induce a lot of vulnerability in the other and risks “opening unknown wounds”, “hidden traumas” or “offending the other’s worldview”. A “politically correct” attitude is advisable but, at the same time, it’s a failure when it comes to relational complexity or intimacy. Therefore, you can say a lot to, share a lot with and know a lot about someone… and yet be total strangers.

Do you still have friends?

Did you ever had at least one?

Do you know how to make a friend? No, not a connection – I am not taking about networking or “adding” someone “as a friend” on any social media site or app – but just one real friend?

Can you tell the difference between friends and “connections”?