by Gabriela Barkho, New York Post (Excerpt)

Imagine: You’re skimming your Twitter feed and notice a stream of sad tweets from a college friend. Without a moment’s thought, you send a funny GIF across the digital divide, content that you’ve cheered up your friend and made a positive mark on their day.

But, wait: You can’t quite remember where they’re living these days, or what they do for work. Did you miss their birthday? Chances are, you pop over to Facebook and check, reassure yourself that you’re caught up on their milestones, then go about your day. Are you still friends, even though you haven’t seen each other in years, or spoken in a non-digital medium?

Are all those tools for staying connected actually making you a worse friend? […]

Brian Solis, who is interested in “digital anthropology,” said the possibility of being a so-called “bad friend” for opting to go mainly digital is something people are still adapting to.

“We are getting lazier, and so putting something on a wall is checked off as a personal interaction for most people,” he said. “But we’re learning the hard way, through experience — so there really is no answer to the ‘bad friend’ notion. It’s all user-defined.” […]