defriending and mathetics

Starting a new year with ending friendships?

It is 2010 since four days. Receiving many good wishes in all formats (digital, snail mail, live) from dear friends we hear that having less friends is the trend for this year. It is called defriending.

Until recent it was a sign of popularity if you had more than 200 friends in Hyves, Facebook or other popular social software. Gradually many users discover that having so many friends is impossible. Maybe you can say that this people know you and the more people knowing you, the higher your digital status.

However a real friendship is only possible with a (very) limited amount of people. The word friend has been used in an improper way. Discovering this, people start defriending, dropping many persons with whom they do not have real friendship.
That things go too fast, superficial and therefore loose part of their meaning is something also visible in the blogging world. The tendency of slow blogging illustrates this.

Both processes illustrate very well stages in Mathetical learning. In the beginning people think in terms of quantity, speed, because the media are pushing us in this direction. Going that way a lot of people follow the exhaustive method (going on until you cannot hold it any longer).
After a protest of our brain we turn back to basic needs. Some educational movements also use this method, when children or students have to adapt to a new educational environment.