Why there's nothing fake about Facebook friendship

Friendship keeps us alive, so it's no wonder we worry whether social media has doomed it.

Ahead of Facebook's 12th anniversary Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg said the company's goal is to have 5 billion of the world’s 7 billion humans connected to the social network by 2030. Facebook, already massive in reach, likes to stress its goal is about friendships — in fact, it named the day "Friends Day" and rolled out a social blitz to drive the point home.

Even if you're a "Friends Day" skeptic, there's no denying how Facebook has changed the meaning and structure of friendship, one of the most important components of human health and happiness. So vital, in fact, that a 10-year Australian study found older people with a strong network of friends were statistically more likely to be alive at the end of the study than those with the fewest.

Plenty has been said about how social media is destroying friendship, reducing it to a parade of ego that has little to do with our authentic selves. But many experts say friends developed and maintained online can be as real as the ones we tend to over coffee, let loose with at the bar or nurture in one another's living rooms.

The distinction may be that the group you call "friends" changes as you interact on Facebook. It helps you maintain strong ties, but it also creates weaker ones, promoting a sense of intimacy with co-workers, ex-classmates and the moms in your overly aggressive parenting group.

"We have all these cognitive structures to arrange our friendships," said Emily Langan, an associate professor of communication at Wheaton College. "The problem with Facebook is there is only one category, you can’t qualify different kinds. So it does distort the term." Facebook oversimplifies a complex relationship. But that doesn't mean it fundamentally changes it.

For all but the die-hard, the medium is inescapable, as is the hand-wringing. The Pew Research Center says 74% of online adults use social networking sites.

"With every new media innovation there's an accompanying moral panic," said Benjamin Burroughs, an assistant professor of emerging media at the University of Nevada.

The telephone would make us lazy. Radio was too distracting. TV would glue us to the couch. Now, mobile phones will turn us into misanthropes. Remember that people had their heads down on trains in the 1950s, too, they were just buried in newspapers.

Experts say friendships on social media aren't fundamentally different than those offline.

All friendships have the same basic ingredients: voluntary, mutual, personal, affectionate and equal, according to William Rawlins, a professor of communication studies at Ohio University.

The voluntary part is key. Reciprocity is one of Facebook's central tenants. I can't friend you unless you accept me. This isn't the case for all social networks. On Twitter and Instagram you can follow without being followed back, creating a more impersonal network.

Langan said whether you're a friend online or offline, the rules don't change. In person, you're obligated to tell your friend her baby is adorable, even though she looks like a wombat. Online, you can't log off with a free conscience until you "like" the baby wombat.

An often repeated mantra is that "social media isn't real." It's where we cultivate a persona — exploit the filter, the angle, the edit.

Langan doesn't buy it. "Are you kidding? Do you think you don’t do image management in person?" she asked.

People exercise more control over how they appear on social media, because they have more time. Reactions aren't always instantaneous. But taking time to respond doesn't mean we're not authentic, just more deliberate.

"With love letters back in the World War II era, people could really write these wonderful pieces of connection," the University of Nevada's Burroughs said. "Face-to-face it might never have reached that level."

But what about relationships that should time out?

A study from Oxford University psychology professor Robin Dunbar found that, on average, only 15 of your Facebook friends could be counted on for emotional support during difficult times.

“Friendships, in particular, have a natural decay rate in the absence of contact, and social media may well function to slow down the rate of decay," the study said. It suggests some face-to-face contact is important in maintaining meaningful relationships.

Deep connections on Facebook require vigilance, because lack of non-verbal cues can make online friendships more difficult.

The cues exist online, but Langan said it takes seven times longer to spot them. Have a friend who posts frequently but hasn't said a thing for the last three days? Maybe it's time to check in. For the next generation, looking for these signs will be crucial.

The mechanisms we use to connect may be evolving, but Langan said social media isn't likely to change the eternal fundamentals of friendship.

"When Aristotle is writing about friendships, he’s really not talking that differently than I talk now," she said.

The famous philosopher said friendship is "a single soul dwelling in two bodies." And now we know, sometimes, in two iPhones.

Dastagir is a mobile editor who works for USA TODAY in New York City. She likes Facebook, deals with Twitter, but would rather find you on Instagram.