The Increasing Importance of Diversity in Your Friendships

I consider myself reasonably well-read.  I read the Philadelphia Inquirer every morning, The Economist every week, and numerous online news sites as time permits.  But, let's face it: I get a lot of my news scoops from my friends sharing stories on Facebook.  I imagine that many of you do as well.

This isn't all bad: unless you're weird, your friends are, in the aggregate, a good group of people to get news from, since they're people you trust and who you think highly of.  But one must be careful of the inherent biases you'll take in if you're not careful: oftentimes, when friends share stories, it's because something has them riled up, either positively (This is really important! Like like like!) or negatively (This disgusts me!  Can you believe this!).  And if your friends are all on one side of whatever spectrum, whether political or economic or religious or whatever, you run the risk of receiving your news with a decidedly unbalanced tint to it, instead of seeing all sides and forming your own opinion.

Diversity is the buzzword to end all buzzwords.  But it really is important to have diversity in your friendships, at least if you're like me and you stay informed in large part from their status updates and news shares.