Here is a slogan that says that at times friends can be better than family in the sense that friends can be there when you need them the most. This slogan also means that friends can easily help one more than blood relatives can do. The development in the world of technology has brought about the ability to technology gurus to make fake or virtual friends online. These friends work to influence friendships, communication and social interaction in different ways. Most of the virtual friends help their developers to come up with an opinion support in ways that will sway the beliefs of real people. These friends are known as bots, which are lines created to act or behave like real people and are only found on social media and the internet as a whole. A person can either create their own or buy them from other creators of bots. Research shows that these new technology or virtual friends have shaped the way people interact on social media. This paper takes the opinion that money can buy you both real and virtual friends.
The existence of bots online has changed the way people value friendships. Those who are introverts and d not have time to meet real friends can decide to buy virtual friends online. Hence, making the old saying that “money cannot buy you friends” out dated. Whether money can buy friends or not money depends on the types of friends a person is talking about. It is important to state that money can buy a person both virtual and human friends. It just depends on how a person wants to buy these friends. For example, social media users can easily buy both real and virtual friends using money. For example, if a person has a webpage that he or she would like a million people to like, the best thing he can do is buy real humans to like his or her page by giving them money and he can rich the target at no time. In this case, money shall have bought real human friends. What will be worrying is that the friends are short lived. On the other hand, the same person can decide to buy fake friends called bots online and have them like or vote for a given website. In this case, the buyer will be in control of the fake friends and can decide to retain them as long as he or she wants.
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The ability to have fake or real friends supports the need for social inclusion and penetration. Similarly, such friends also function in supporting interpersonal communication between the real friends more than they do among fake or virtual friends. On the same note, one factor that aims to shape social interaction among real and virtual friends is the social penetration theory. A study by Carpenter & Green, (2016) defines social penetration theory as the phenomenon that states that as relationships grow, interpersonal communication shift from relatively low, non-intimate levels to deeper and more intimate stages.
Thus according to this theory, interpersonal communication should develop gradually to a point when the people communicating with one another can create more intimate levels during social communication and hence interactions. People are able to achieve a shift in these levels when they interact with one another online. On the same note, they are able to create the same atmosphere when interacting with inanimate objects on the same platform. For example, the article reports that many people have turned to the use of bots for political and other purposes. Some people create bots to help divert the attention of citizens or a given section of audience from one point to the next.
The new technologies also play the role of liking forums and discussion and replace people in making likes and votes. In this case, the creator and user of bots shall have increased their level of interaction from non-intimate to more intimate once. Sociology has also shown that there are people who like forming relationships with inanimate objects such as bots and beautiful art works among others (Lujam, 2013). As the levels of friendship grow, the owner and user of bots will require having more friends and the only way to fill the gap between him or her and the bots is by buying more of them. The person becomes intimately attached to the inanimate objects that he cannot imagine doing most of his activities without them. In this case, the man will have formed intimate object hence forming friends.
The idea that money cannot buy you a friend is one that has gripped many people the world over and it is clear that money cannot buy a person friends, both online and in real life. There are people who will be friends to another person because the person has money and is willing to spend it on him or her. On the other hand, there are those people who understand how technology has shaped different sectors of human existence and have used the idea to create virtual friends known as bots. The creators of these technologies sell them to the people who want them for various reasons. An article published by Bilton (2014) indicates that indeed money can buy a person fake friends who can help move the aspirations of tht person from one point to the next. Therefore, the notion that money cant buy you friends is not applicable in this day and era when technology can help humans achieve any goal in social interaction and communication.
References
Bilton, N. (2014). Friends, and Influence, for Sale Online. New York: New York Times.
Carpenter, A., & Green, K. (2016). Social Penetration Theory. New York: John Willey & Sons.
Lujam, R. (2013). Social Penetration Theory . Belmont: Cengage Learing .
