What are friends for?

A friend of mine posted this on his Facebook wall: “When I was 11, I had two friends. They lived three fields away. I would play with them in the woods. My 11-year-old daughter tells me she has 483 friends, most of whom she has never met.
“I’m not saying one way is better than the other, but the difference is striking.”
It really is, isn’t it?
But there’s this. When I was 11 I moved up to a school 20 miles from home. I pretty soon more or less lost touch with the friends I’d played in the woods with.
I made new friends, of course – but none near enough for us to pop round each others’ houses. Or play in the woods. I got pretty good at kicking a football against a wall on my own.
I’m not sure most kids these days do much “popping round”. But it seems that while they’re awake they’re in pretty much constant contact with each other.
Which may be a good thing – or it may mean there’s just no escape.
If, like me, you regret the demise of kids playing out, you can’t blame the internet. The damage was well under way before the age of the personal computer.
In fact, you could say the net has opened up the world again, broadened horizons in a new way.
And there’s this. That friend whose remark prompted these musings – I’ve never actually met him in person.