More and more targeted FaceBook groups, individuals and (what to me look like) teams of people are sending out friend requests. on a quest to reach the highest score. their aim is to increase their personal friend numbers. they all want the most. It’s a game!!
one guy today congratulated another for reaching 5000. wow. the mind boggles what they will do with 5000 friends – certainly not develop any form of meaningful interaction and certainly not even a decent spam list because as we know FaceBook bans that (and I’ve known a couple who have suffered the consequences and been deleted).
so, why? but more importantly, should I get involved?
To be honest, I accept friend requests. more people to throw sheep at? Hmmm. at the start l only added them if they included a message and explained why. then it came down to what they had on their profile and their personal interests (but you couldn’t always see that til you were friends) and then it kinda got a bit hard (too many coming through!!). I could easily have gone over 400 friends but instead I have started “culling”. trimming back. clearing the wardrobe. spring cleaning. My aim is to remain UNDER 400.
so, that’s my game.
but, after all is said and done, where am I? where does that leave me and what should I do? There are some friends I’ve made through this process that I didn’t think i would and we have had great conversations online. then there are some that are just well… how does one put it politely in a public domain? Hmm maybe I’ll just leave it there.
so, I guess I will have to remain a little risky on the friend acceptance side of things and fingers crossed, and hope for the best in order to continue to find the people who I value and enjoy interacting with?
Posts
4 comments:
I do relate with your post. I'm getting less friend requests these days (I have 400+ friends) on Facebook and I welcome the breathing space, because I get messages from people I've no idea were on my friends' list (in real life, I'd be ashamed to admit that). My inbox is full of unread messages about tons of events that I never felt like attending, and I find that the friends I feel most attached to are the first ones I made. Recently, I left about half the groups I had joined. One of these days, I'm going to look through my list and trim it back. I did that when I had a list of around 100, then 200. But there is too much noise now, and not enough interaction.
The cynics might say this feeling was to be expected, however I'm glad I joined in the fun. You are one of the persons I'm glad I met.
hi Nadine - thanks again for your thoughts. they mirror mine perfectly!! i have to agree - i feel so much more connection with the people i met earlier on ie like you. There's Mari, Michael and others who I still love hearing from too. Perhaps we all "learnt together" and so feel a similar bond from that experience? There are others, more recently that I have connected really well with, so i still want to remain open - hence my dilemma.
but - you're right - too many and the interaction drops (and i also hate that "who are you?" moment. eek embarrassing). i prefer the conversation with someone i've connected with more than anything.
so thanks. love from charlie
Yes friending has gotten out of hand... what used to be your community became your FB friends and now has become your friends of friends of friends... with no real connection or relationship...
I too am not able to keep up with the group/event invitations which have started to feel like spam. Recently I started to ask random friending with no message "Why do you think we should be friends"... as for group/event invites I ignore them unless it is from someone I really follow and have a relationship with.
Which is not to say that if someone really wants to know me I am open to conversations as you well know - I was thrilled to get your friending invite with your question about my NYC walks in Central Park which I post about on FB/Twitter and now Plurk...
If someone wants to connect, I am truly open to it. In fact I try to make a habit, pick one person each week and reach out to get to know them. Most of the time a real relationship or at least understanding of who we are follows, like with you, Mari, Mary Pat, Jim, Nancy, Nadine, Krista, and many more.
On and off I have un-grouped myself, and un-friended some who are just plain spamming me with invites and no permission. I do wonder if they even looked at my profile to figure out if I would be interested.
While I am interested in connecting with people on FB and other SM sites I participate in; I also have to acknowledge that I want to network, share myself, my business and network with those I meet; I am not sure having a large number of friends of friends or friends is the way to accomplish this.
xoxo from Linda
Hi Linda... so so true. Thankyou for sharing these thoughts - and yes I am still so so so jealous (and tell many people) about my connection with Central Park. I LOVE the fact that I can have conversations with someone across the world, share similar views, learn and connect. It's what all this (to me) is about.
I was explaining all this the other day to someone (offline) and they commented and replied "what, like old fashioned pen pals?".
to be honest, it kinda is. the benefit obviously is that we are savvier these days and also can benefit in business by establishing and then deepening a relationship.
we gain a much better understanding of the person because we can also see their habits and actions!!
so, thanks again for hooking up!! and keep those NY visions coming to us. yaaaah xxc
Post a Comment