Facebook Re-purposing

I've been spending a lot less time on the social networks and made a few discoveries. I thought I'd share them with you.

1) I have way more "friends" in the virtual world than in reality.
2) Some of the people that I see on Facebook, I actually see in person pretty often.
3) Many of my "friends" I don't really follow (and I'm sure many don't follow me).

There are several other observations that I could share, but these are the three that stand out for me.

I like Facebook for a number of reasons.

It helps me --get this-- network! I like it for the ability to have an easy contact for pastors, churches and other organizations that might want to use my services as a preacher/teacher/magician/speaker/etc.

I have really enjoyed connecting with old classmates and staying in touch with relatives that live far away (and all of my relatives live far away).

Some of my friends post some pretty cool things.

Again, there are other good things, but that's not really important.

In the coming days, I'm going to be making some massive cuts to my friends list. I'm not out to hurt anyone's feelings. I'm just re-purposing my use of this particular social network. If I work with you or see you on a fairly regular basis, you might get dropped. We may have to talk about what is going on in our lives rather than the "I saw your Facebook post" beginning and end to a conversation.

It could be that we became FB friends out of a single event or a single commonality and we really have no other interest in one another's lives. It's not that I don't like you, but you're probably going to go.

In the end, my 635 current "friends" will be greatly reduced. Most of them will never notice (which is a good indication of why they were dropped). Some of you might. If you think that I've been too extreme, feel free let me know. If you want to keep in touch via FB, just say so.

I'm not planning on making a grand production out of who I keep and who I delete, I'm just going to go down the list with a simple yea or nay and move on. Kids, youths, workers from camps--we had fun and I wish you well in your lives, but I'm probably gonna drop you. Some of my ATC friends I know, some I'd really like to know, and others are here because we've met once (maybe) and share a common career. Some I'll keep, some I won't and again, the ones I drop will probably never notice.

I hope that nobody gets their feelings hurt by this. It's really more of a self-preservation thing; a way to make sure that I spend less time on my phone reading about people that are far away and more time relating to the people that are actually close to me.

John <><