"How Many Friends Do You Have?
"Do bots count?" "Friends in Facebook?" "Does a girlfriend chatbot count as a friend?"
Artificial and/or superficial connections are abundant. They can even made up, right? I know people who, in order to appear popular, would add as "friends" people they never met in their entire life and never even "spoke to" (online). For example siblings of acquaintances.
Words have to have consistent meanings, right?
Social control media preys on class insecurities and thrives in addiction for a perceived "status", a longing for peer affirmation.
The answer to all this?
Do not participate. Not at all.
People who are not in social control media can never be compared to "addicts" of private, typically foreign, pseudo-social sites.
Heck, you would be safe to assume non-addicts have vastly more time to meet actual people whom they can honestly call "friends". █