Why Nintendo's Miitomo app understands friendship better than Twitter

While social media is a fun place to meet friends, the threat of abuse seems ever present. Miitomo removes it from the equation entirely

Social media has changed the way that we think about friends. It has elasticated the whole notion of relationships. Imagine if an old boss you haven't seen for six months (and barely ever talked to) asks you out for a drink to catch up: you'd scoff at the thought. But if they wanted to be Facebook friends, a lot of us may feel it would rude to turn them down. Facebook friends, Twitter friends, internet friends, friend friends - all of these signal distinct and varying levels of social engagement. The result is, we have a lot more 'friends' than we ever did before, and this has become tricky to manage - especially on Twitter.

Perhaps more than any other social media platform, Twitter allows users to build and cultivate social circles with very little delineation between friends, strangers, casual acquaintances and celebrities. Communities interlock and overlap in a very ad-hoc, seamless way.