This is how I look at it: An average student these days seems to have at least 300 Facebook ”friends,” at least judging by an informal headcount I did recently on about a dozen accounts. Realistically, the average person is only friendly with maybe 50 of them (that’s a stretch), and good friends with probably 15 of those 300 friends.
By announcing what college you got into, you are obnoxiously broadcasting personal information that probably only 20 of your Facebook friends actually care about.
I think that Ms. Reddicliffe is looking at this problem from entirely the wrong angle. The issue is not that you shouldn't be posting information to social media that only people you have a genuine relationship with would be interested in. The issue is the tendency to add everyone you've ever met to your social media network, to see your friends and followers list as a kind of social scoreboard even as it becomes more and more removed from any actual social significance.
I think that, when you get to the point that you're filtering your Facebook posts to avoid boring the 250 people who read your updates but don't actually care about you, it's time to do another kind of filtering. Post something that is of great significance in your life, like your acceptance to the university of your dreams, and then remove everyone from your "friends" list who would consider your achievement to be "obnoxious personal information."
I am one of those with hundreds of friends (in facebook and in its German counterpart StudiVZ) and your're right, there are many I wouldn't have contact with if not for social media networks. But cases in which this "friendship" is really senseless are few. There were 94 people in my Abitur year, most of which I added in StudiVZ, which may be quite convenient once we plan a reunion. There are people from my lectures I can simply wirte a message when I don't know what we have to do for homework. There are friends of my sister's who seem to find it cool to have older people in their friend lists. However, actually, I have that many friends in order to satisfy my curiosity - "Oh, these two are still in contact?" "What, he's been to Egypt!?" "Omg, she wears a short skirt!" And, somehow, it feels good that 100 people wish you a happy birthday. The year when only two people cared to call me (my birthday nearly always was during summer holidays) was worse than the years when my wall was full of comments...
ReplyDeleteFirstly, sorry i haven't visited in so long. I reinstalled my OS and forgot about my rss reader (*gasp*). I finally remembered, and now Google Reader has me covered. Anyway, on to my reply to this fairly old post (i'm catching up).
ReplyDeleteMy reason for having a large number of facebook friends (353) that i never talk to is more....selfishly practical. I simply view "friends" as a means for finding other people's phone number/email address, should i need to get in touch with them. I almost never go to the actual website (i checked for the number of friends a moment ago), but if i need to, it's more practical to have as large a network as possible.
I guess it is worth noting, though, that aside from that benefit i feel the same way that you do.