Is there an unfriending trend? Matt Singley (M80) is defriending people on Facebook. Raanan Bar-Cohen (Automattic) keeps a private WordPress blog for family. Are execs at social media companies starting a trend? Or is this just a natural correction to the glutted friendship market?
Wasn’t it exciting to add friends to our lists? It was like high school all over again, only this time, you could collect friends like beannie babies. We were all crazy over the connections . . . and the possibilities. And, then those profiles just sat there. Unopened. Unexplored. They were white elephant friends. You knew people who knew people who knew them. You saw them once in the grocery store. Or maybe you never saw them, but the name sounded familiar.
So, now, if you are relevant, you are blogging. You can invite these store friends to comment on your blog. Maybe that’s how we’ll separate the wheat from the chaff in the race to find the “professional bloggers/journalists.” The authorities will be crowned by the populace . . .commenters become voters and bloggers become presidents.
As we sort through the “noise,” I am reminded by a blogger’s suggestion for friending people. (Isn’t it interesting that I cannot remember who wrote this? and note that I could totally have passed this off as my own, but I won’t….)
Adding someone as a friend on Facebook without writing them an introductory note is like meeting someone and not sticking out your hand for a handshake.
It seems as if we’ve all been guilty of too many no-hand handshakes.
I’ve been guilty of far too many no-handshake introductions, hence the purge of Facebook. I’m really just a few days into it, and already I can tell you I’m glad that I did it. Some parts of our lives just need to remain private and intimate enough for just close personal friends and family (at least I believe so), but for too long I didn’t approach social media this way. I’m finding out that not only was I robbing myself of a certain experience…but I was also robbing my friends and family. They’re slowing starting to comment and message me on Facebook again.