How many of you have social network "friends" that you don't subscribe to their feeds and cringe whenever you see that they've responded to one of your posts?
How many of you have social network "friends" that are really friends of "friends" or merely acquaintances?
How many of you have social network "friends" that you've never met and probably never will?
How many of you keep these "friends" because you don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or just don't want to have to explain your actions?
I have a bunch of them that fall into all of the above categories and then some.
Many of my friends come from camps and churches where I've been.
Many are air traffic controllers that I've met; many are controllers that I haven't met.
There are writers, bloggers, friends of writers and bloggers and a rather large family that is spread across the US and in Australia and the Philippines.
I have hometown friends and classmates.
I have "friends" from my own church; some that I barely know and never have contact with other than a Sunday morning greeting.
I have friends that we've met on vacations.
I even have friends that I have no idea of how I know them.
Facebook says I have 642 friends and I've never played any community games that require friendships. On Twitter I have an even 100 followers. Google + says that I have 65 people in my circles and 69 people have me in their circles. And over on LinkedIn I have 137 connections. On Blogger I have 31 followers, but many more read Out of My Hat through the links on the other networks.
Since the main reason that I started using social networks was for professional exposure for both ministry and magic (and later, writing), I'm wondering if it's time to cull through the networks and eliminate some of my contacts.
Maybe it would be better to set up separate accounts and keep one professional and one personal. LinkedIn is still pretty much a professional network and Google+ lets you direct posts to your "circles" so not everybody sees every thing. I may just start using those more.
So I'm curious.
How do you use your social networking sites?
What are your personal guidelines for accepting or rejecting requests?
Have you ever unfriended multiple friends in a purge? How'd that go?
Have you ever been unfriended?
Just wondering...
John <><
3 comments:
Good article, John.
Several months ago I went through this thought process. I had some 2600 friends. I went through and purged 2200. All of a sudden all of my family showed up along with my real friends. I friend friends, family and authors. I've added about 140 since that weekend.
I don't know if I've been unfriended or not. Logic tells me I have been.
The rest of the social media platforms are all about business to me.
Blessings, my friend--even though we are only connected by writing--so far.
Tom
I don't use social networking sites like Facebook.
I would find it to be too harsh to "unfriend" anyone. Some people do post gauche comments, and some have their own issues.
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