The idea that social media can do this is the central conceit of facebook. A friendship maintained solely because of an entry in a database is not the same as one driven by the memories of the participants. You are not extending your ability to make friends. You are engaging in something fundamentally different from friendship.<p>Look at the effects--- facebook depresses people, but meeting real people in real life makes us happy. You will say you need facebook to know where the next party is and meet those people, but that&#x27;s like saying you need to smoke to meet people at bars.<p>Friendship isn&#x27;t a token. It&#x27;s a continued process of communication and exchange. You are not extending your capacity for friendship by submitting your life details to a social network.<p>EDIT: grammar