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I keep hearing this argument but I think it's impractical. Because every person has a different idea about when and who it is appropriate to friend on Facebook
by borplk 13y ago
I keep hearing this argument but I think it's impractical.
Because every person has a different idea about when and who it is appropriate to friend on Facebook and no one is really right or wrong, it's just a preference.
However this makes for awkward social situations.
For example your college classmate that you don't really know, adds you on Facebook because hey you are his classmate (or teammate).
To him, that relationship is sufficient to justify connecting with someone on Facebook.
To you, that may be far from it because you choose to keep ~60 friends but he likes to have a broader network.
This happens in all sorts of different contexts. For example you meet someone at a local community meetup, or you speak at a conference and people that you see there will ask to add you on Facebook.
At that point, how do you gracefully handle the situation?
Do you really turn around and say "Uh...yeah thanks...but I only keep 'real' friends on Facebook". Or "Uh...sorry I can't commit to a Facebook friendship right now...you are not good enough of a friend just yet to qualify".
No matter how you put it, you come off as rude and weird and that person will likely not even come close to you any more. But your relationship would otherwise be valuable.
That's one of the many reasons I don't have a Facebook account.
- cliveowen 13y agoWhat we're dealing with in this setting is the social pressure fueled by the faulty expectations of people regarding what's rude and what's not. As I see it, that's not something Facebook can address. Not now, not ever.
- quadrangle 13y agoWrong. What we're dealing with is a serious market-failure in a truly good system to keep in touch with the guy you just met at the meetup who you truly want to connect with. He just goes and uses Facebook, and you use nothing. Neither is good. And that's the problem, not the rudeness issue.
- bpyne 13y agoI agree with your assessment that each person has a different threshold for calling someone a "friend". But, FB lets you reject a request without providing a reason. I can see in your hypothetical situation that one classmate rejecting the other's request could be awkward if they meetup, in a physical sense, periodically. Otherwise, I think one should just reject and move on. Personally, I try not to use FB as I do LinkedIn. It's strictly for my personal, not professional, network. With only enough exceptions to count on one hand, I don't accept anyone with whom I haven't spent a significant amount of time.
- VLM 13y agoThe drama at friending time sounds only perhaps a hundredth as dramatic as I've seen on the other end, the unfriend event. "What, you unfriended me because I posted a bible verse last year, what is wrong with you?" "If you unfriend me, I'm telling my mom, your aunt, to yell at your mom to get her to yell at you! (bonus points for hilarity if mom doesn't even use FB)" Even more hilarious is workplace warfare about one coworker unfriending the another where one of them happens to be a (more or less) protected class, like race or religion or orientation or political activism, probably 2/3 the population fit in here somehow, and they play that card in the ensuing battle which inevitably rolls management into it ("He unfriended me and I'm XYZ so he must have unfriended me because I'm XYZ so you need to fire him for creating an unfriendly workplace for XYZ or I'll go to your bosses boss who happens to be a XYZ") And I'm not making ANY of this up.