I know I’m in a cranky mood when I start wishing for a “this is DUMB” button while looking through people’s status updates, things they become a fan of, and groups joined on facebook. My negative feelings for stupid things on facebook are kind of like my road rage. I don’t usually have it. I’m a pretty calm driver. Some lady almost ran into me on the way to work today as she speedily backed out of her driveway without looking, but I avoided smashing into her and we waved at each other like friends and drove away. However there are days when some things will irritate me on the road.
It’s the same with facebook. Usually things don’t bug me and I “like” everything and calmly hide, reject or ignore the stuff I prefer not to see but today was a bit different. When I saw people become a fan of (insert silly facebook application here that I won’t name specifically to avoid hurt feelings) I cringed and tried to remember my Sunday school and relief society lessons on not being judgmental.
“That’s dumb”, “why in the name of all that is good would you post THAT!?” “ I… do… not… care…[hide]” “I’m sure this group is a scam, I can’t believe I have friends joining it and I can’t believe they asked me to join it too [reject]…again! I should only have to reject a group invite once [reject]”…“stop sending me fan page suggestions [ignore][ignore][ignore][ignore]”… were some of the things running through my head as a navigated through my homepage and invites/suggestions. I had no idea I was cranky today, but apparently I am, otherwise I’m sure these things wouldn’t have bothered me to the point of writing this dumb blog…which fits nicely into my theme of “about nothing”.
Whether I’m cranky or in a fantastic mood, I am always surprised at the level of personal TMI-ness I come across in what some people choose to post. Many of those posts are from people I haven’t seen in who knows how long, and whom I will probably never speak to or care if I ever spoke to again. It’s not that I’m being mean or not caring about friends I once had, but some of these people I was never great friends with to start. I’ve been debating lately about whether or not I should wipe out a significantly sized chunk of my facebook friends. Is it rude or mean to de-friend people? Would it make me a facebook snob if I did? Just because we were acquaintances once upon a time, does it justify being facebook friends now?
Cyber friendships are a way to make us feel like we have more friends than we really do. I have 330 facebook friends, but when I count the number of people I choose to spend my free time with I can count them on my two hands (not including family because then I’d have to take off my socks and maybe borrow someone else’s fingers and toes). Granted some friends that would be included on my fingers are too far away to be counted, and that’s what facebook is for. Right? Who are all these other people?
As it approaches.....
12 years ago
1 comment:
I always look at Facebook aquaintances a little differently. I will run into people from high school that I haven't seen in 13 years. We friend each other and then after about 2 or 3 e-mails I am reminded of why we got distant with each other. And then I delete them.
Most people don't notice. Of the about 200 people I've deleted, only 4 have come back and said "I think we somehow got deleted."
I have a 6 month policy I try to keep to. If I haven't heard from a person on facebook for 6 months - I just delete them. It's not harsh in my mind - it's just limiting the people I share TMI info with.
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