Define 'Friend'

The ability to game online has transformed not only the gaming world but also the manner in which youths are accustomed to socializing. I remember when I was about 14 and counter strike was just beginning to take off. In my opinion it can be considered the first massively popular first person shooter that was able to be played against other opponents online. Initially, in a social context, youths played at internet cafes where face to face interaction between players still took place, the bulk of people (at least in my own experience) played over LAN so were all in-fact playing each other and were all in the same room. Recently the emphasis seems to have shifted back into the home, can this be associated with the rise of consoles such as the PlayStation and Xbox?  No public space exists where a bunch of PlayStations are linked together and can be played online such as once existed with the humble internet café. Within the space of the game there is room for interaction with other players and one can even make ‘friends’ with other users, whereby their username is added to your friends list and you can see what they are playing and interact with them via messages at any point in time. Is this redefining the perception of what a friend is? The traditional definition of friend is “A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/friend). I am not sure that this definition can be applied to people who have met one another online. As pointed out by Talmadge Wright there are 5 general categories of coded online talk, these are:  

1) Creative game talk

2) Game conflict talk

3) Insult/distancing talk

4) Performance talk

5) Game technical/external talk

In essence all of these conversations revolve around the game; an online friend has nothing to do with once personal grievances or other personal issues. I find this to be of concern as many youths today do a large portion of their interaction online, are we becoming further apart as a result?