“Modern friendship, that has become very powerful and influential, has been transforming the world in various ways. Though this is the golden age of friendship, people do continue to feel lonely,” author and journalist Manu Joseph said.
Speaking at TEDxChennai, Mr. Joseph noted, after the emergence of social media, people can sit at a place, filter out and stick to similar kind as friends.
One of the binding forces of friendship, he said, is human weakness.
“We collect our own and that takes us to the central quality of friendship. It has become a corroboration of biases and opinion; if someone has chosen you as friend and is complimenting, it is because you are like them. They are complimenting themselves,” he said.
There is a thematic shift to fame itself, he said.
“There was a time when, if we have to be famous, we had to do something very well or do something that many people know. But today, you can be famous [in the social media] if you just post a comment or post your infant’s photo,” Mr. Joseph noted.
The TEDxChennai theme was ‘Erasing the Box’.
It was to promote free thought and featured speakers including activist Kirthi Jayakumar, artist Parvathi Nayar, architect Deepti Zachariah, scientist P.K. Tiwari and historian Pradeep Chakravarthy.
