In amongst them there were a couple of people who I had not seen recently (some of them for decades) and it was great to 'ask them to be my friend' and it was just delerious to be accepted by them via email the following morning.
The majority of people on the list were either unknown to me or people who I had been happy to avoid for years. Unfortunately my Facebook 'debut' was an exquisite pleasure (for them) and they were desperate to 'be my friend'. I felt slightly nasty refusing their request and I resented being put into this position.
I certainly didn't feel the need to start typing in the search engine the names of celebrities or people who I wanted to be introduced to. Call me agrophobic but I just don't feel the need to increase the number of people I call 'my friends'.
I was happy that despite the cyber 'intimacy' I didn't need to tell them 'face to face' that I didn't need their friendship. The security 'veil' that Facebook offers I felt was very good and hugely important. The capability of meeting people is great but I still think the people you share your day to day lives with in the real world will always be more important than any cyber buddy.
Cognition is how we process information.
Social cognition is processing information based on having the 'real world' interaction: availability, looks, smell, body language and reputation with all the baggage that comes with those things.
In Web 2.0, visual cognition is processing information based purely on a person's digital manifestation. In this realm, ideas, accessibility and reactions are the main game. Emoticons become semi important as a way of filtering the cold hard reality of text. However, without the overlay of real world interaction (therefore social cognition) it is often hard to determine the sincerity or authenticity of the information in the interaction.
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