Episode 65: Friendship in the age of Social Media

What is true friendship? C.S. Lewis famously claimed that "like philosophy, like art...friendship has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival." Kalil Gibran has written "Your friend is your needs answered. He is your friend which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving." Yet in our modern world of Facebook, pressures of professional networking and the general commodification of the word 'friend', we felt it was time to revisit this often un-asked question — What is a true friend? What role do friends play in our lives? Do we have levels of friendship? How should we 'be' with our friends?   In this episode: * definitions of friendship from Stoic philosophers down to Emerson & C.S. Lewis * the role of trust and judgement in friendship * social media & the commodification of the word 'friend' * levels, taxonomies and kinds of friendship * psychological studies on the necessary elements of friendship * can men and women ever really be friends?