A british judge has ruled that being "Facebook friends" with someone doesn't necessarily make you their friend. He was ruling in a case where a woman was accusing her ex-boyfriend of "hounding her" by constantly sending her "friend requests".

An expert testified that Facebook was merely a vehicle through which people gave each other access to their profile pages, pictures and comments. He pointed out that some people had up to 1000 "friends" on Facebook and these couldn't possibly be regarded as real friendships. He concluded that most of these "friends" were, at best, merely acquaintances.

Another witness gave a countering view. She said that the whole idea of a medium like Facebook was to get in touch with people you wouldn't normally meet, the reason. You can always pay your regular friends a visit, she said, so you don't need Facebook to interact with them.

Indeed, I tend to agree with the last argument. I have moved to another province and therefore interact with some of my relatives on Facebook. I also interact with people I used to go to school and University with, as well as former work colleagues who have since moved to other countries. These are real people I know, and not just icons on a computer screens! Therefore chances are, if these people were close by, I would probably interact with them in the flesh.

Finally, Facebook could serve another purpose if people made an effort to really get to know their online friends, as opposed to just bragging about the fact that they have 500 friends. I have learned a great deal from some of the people I met online, so this medium can be quite useful if utilised correctly. 

Do you have any views on this?