I’m a bit obsessed with social media – as a PR student, I believe that I need to be. I’m on twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and I have a blog (although I do have to update that soon). But, because I’m on two professional social media outlets (Twitter and LinkedIn), I find that I’d rather have one that’s for personal use only – my Facebook.
When I was younger, the “cool” thing to do was to have as many friends as possible – I remember my friends and I competing to get the most Facebook Friends. This would prove that we were, indeed, popular, and not complete losers with no actual friends. Then, when we got into college, everybody was friending everybody before we really met anybody – we just wanted to pretend like we had tons of friends before we even got on campus.
Yet now, I’ve found that I don’t really talk to half of my Facebook friends. Since I’m about to graduate, I want my Facebook to be just for me – just to communicate with my friends and catch them up with my life. And, I don’t want people who I haven’t spoken to – in person, at least – since elementary school, junior high, or for maybe 4/5 years, to really see what I’m up to. Plus, I don’t care what they’re doing with their lives, especially since we didn’t talk all throughout college. There’s the saying that a person really don’t have more than 150 friends ever – and I think it’s true. However, I don’t think I can reduce my friends to 150 people – it’d be too difficult. But, I have deleted more than half my friends – since May, I’ve gone from 1000+ people to 526 (as of right now).
And, then comes the awkward bit where people refriend me – and I just think, “I haven’t talked to you since High School/JHS/Elementary School, why are you friending me?” There are also people who friend me now, when I haven’t even seen them since high school. It’s one thing if I bump into them, and we end up reconnecting and rebuilding our friendship again – then I’ll make the move and refriend them. But, if I haven’t talked to them, or I don’t even have their numbers anymore, then I don’t really care about them. So why are you refriending me on Facebook when you haven’t talked to me in ages? Is it because we’re about to graduate and you want to increase your network? That’s what LinkedIn and Twitter were created for. Leave my Facebook alone and out of your ambitions – please and thank you. And, I’ll see you sometime between our five and ten year reunions.