Getting a notification on your phone saying someone has requested to follow you on Instagram, naturally you would open this notification and see who this person is. Do you know this person, do you only know them through a friend or is it someone you have met before face-to-face? According to Silver if you accept this person who requests to follow you but you have never met them before, this person is "a ghost in a machine," you have no real relationship with this person until you meet them face-to-face, they are now just a ghost. I personally think that this is not necessarily true. Yes, I get follow requests on Instagram when I do not know the person personally but they are a friend of a friend and I let them follow me. I would not consider this person a close friend but more of an Instagram follower. Many people though do consider these follow requests friends. Silver is saying that these people cannot be our friends if we have not met them before because "we as humans can only have and maintain 150 friendships". Silver's argument of face-to-face contact over online relationships can be interpreted differently for different people. I think that some people that have more online relationships than face-to-face relationships can defend their argument. Saying that they feel that their online relationships even if they have never met someone they consider a close friend from online that these people are one of their 150 friendships that they are maintaining. Others could agree with Silver and say that they agree with him that only face-to-face relationships work because there is more of a connection when you actually meet someone in person. On Instagram you have the ability to put your page on private or leave it on public. If you chose to put it on private people that request to follow you have to be accepted by you before they can view your page.
This would go along with what Silver is saying about only allowing your close friends view your Instagram page. If you leave your account on public, anyone that wants to follow you has the ability to. This would be going against what Silver is saying in the fact that these people that are following you are not your close friends they are simply a "ghost in a machine".
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