This piece from the New York Times was worth sharing because it’s kind of what I’ve always suspstected – that people have an inordinate number of “friends” on facebook. In reality, these friends are not really friends, they’re just acquaintances. It’s kind of sad really because I feel for the guy in the story who decided to send an invitation to a party to his 700 friends only to find that one person showed up. Maybe I’m just cynical, but I think I’m realistic. That’s why I’m not afraid to say that the other day…well more like a few weeks ago, I got rid of 30 or so “friends.” They weren’t my friends, I didn’t really know these people and they didn’t know me. Adding people to Facebook is easy and having more friends makes people think they’re better (I think). I like to keep mine down. I want my friends to actually be my friends. What do you think? How many “friends” can you really have? Am I a mean person for getting rid of people I don’t really know? Don’t get me wrong. Everyone whom I know from my days growing up as a kid I’m not getting rid of. Heck, I went to school with some of these people 12+ years. It’s the people you meet randomly in class or know of because he/she is a friend of a friend that it just doesn’t make sense. I’m sure they’re all nice people, but it’s just a status thing. Again, all my opinions, but I think it’s true. And, I think that this piece backs up what I’m saying.
October 25, 2008...1:26 pm
Facebook Friends & Invitations
Jump to Comments
2 Comments
November 22, 2008 at 5:26 pm
After reading this I went straight to facebook to see if I was one of the “30″. LOL. You would set me back by 1 in my goal of getting more friends than my wife. Unless, of course, my wife would’ve been one of the 30.
I noticed you’re now at 100 friends. Is that because it’s a nice even number? Are you being “Monk”-ish?
Personally, I’m OK with Facebook being more of an “acquaintancebook”. When networking for jobs, info, whatever, it’s better to have more “friends” than less.
November 28, 2008 at 11:12 am
No, I’m not being Monkish. It just happens that right now I’m at 100 – even after I got rid of 30 people.
You’re right, however, that for networking it’s good to have more friends. I think I look at it more of as a friend thing than an aquaintancebook.