Yesterday, I put up a post about trimming my Facebook friends to 100 people. What I thought would cause a bit of a stir didn’t, which gives me some food for thought. How many would seriously notice if I did unlist them as a friend?
The whole thing with Facebook is that it’s gotten too busy. I don’t have time to keep statuses on what everyone is doing and it doesn’t feel like I’m being authentic with most of the people anyway. Take some time to read the following blog post, Faceless Book. Here are his two basic points:
First, people don’t edit themselves. People uploaded every picture they took, even the duplicate out of focus ones. Why? I don’t know. They don’t have to. But, there they are!
Second, the reality is that I don’t have the time to check out everyone’s picture of every event in their lives. I don’t have time to update and comment and send pokes and flair and surveys and notes and God knows whatever else I could virtually send to my fellow Facebookians.
In continuing my thoughts from yesterday, my friend Sabrina had some good suggestions. She suggested that I actually keep my friends, but add everyone else over 100 friends to another group and only give them limited access to my profile. That way, I retain everyone on the list, but only stay updated on a few people.
What I really want to do is create a list of genuine, authentic friends on facebook who I would interact with often enough for it to be worth the time for all of us. Instead of just shouting it all out, I would edit things and only put up relevant content rather than everything. I actually think that the sheer amount of stuff on Facebook has made information a surplus commodity, making it impossible for any one person to keep updated on what their friends are doing.
So, as I continue thinking about this, please keep sending me your comments. If I decide to go through with this, I’ll have to make some tough decisions on who to keep. And, as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease…
so, i have shared my own thoughts on http://wwww.versatilebean.com.
Sabrina, thanks for the thoughts. Nice to see you blogging!
Nick – keep us posted on this! I’m curious to see what you will decide and how it will work out for you.
I listened to your first podcast on my walk today. Great work!! I can’t wait to listen to number 2. Do you have a promo you could send over? I’d be happy to help promote the show!