Over the past couple of years, I've gotten an occasional request in my email to "become friends with (insert name) on Facebook!" I've deleted these requests because I haven't had the time to update both a Facebook page AND this delightful blog. But, believe it or not, because of something we're attempting at work, I ended up creating a Facebook account this week.
I have a number of questions and concerns regarding my participation in the Facebook community. Perhaps some of you expert Facebook-ers can be of some assistance by commenting on this post or writing something on my wall in Facebook. In any case, here are the dilemmas thus far.
1. I don't yet know how I feel about the sudden change of intimacy between myself and people I haven't spoken to or thought about in 20+ years. I suddenly have friend requests coming in from people I knew when I still occasionally digested a crayon or two, which leads quickly from "Hmm...I wonder how that guy turned out?" to seeing things like "I took an extra Xanax this morning to stop the voices. Then I had a waffle." I'm not sure this sudden view into the private lives of people I "used to know" is healthy.
2. Given my busy schedule and active social calendar, I don't know if I'm responsible for replying to every comment made "on my wall" on Facebook. Am I allowed to reply in a few days? Do I have to reply immediately? I always feel like I need to actually respond to emails, but does the same apply to Facebook? Do I really need to talk Xanax guy off the ledge?
3. Is it considered stalking to "friend" people who you only knew in 2nd grade? I'm getting requests like this, but is this really acceptable? Can you email a restraining order?
4. It depresses me that if I search based on the name of my high school, I see all these fresh, young faces come up. But I have to keep scrolling until I see the bald dudes to find "my people."
In any case, it's cool to talk to people, albeit informally, that I don't get to talk to very often. And it's definitely addicting to look at pictures of people I knew long ago. But given that I haven't yet mastered the ability to communicate in two sentence bursts (see my previous texting issues), I'm still going to use this blog as my primary forum. But if you wanna hookup on Facebook, here's my page.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
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1 comment:
I have to laugh at this. It was the same types of questions that I had. I, like you, tried to avoid facebook like the plague, until a friend told me that he was able to find a mutual friend who had fallen off the face of the earth, and the mutual friend responded (much to our shock, actually). That did it for me and now people whom I haven't heard from since second grade, or who rode the bus with me in middle school have all shown up. It's strange, interesting, and can be overwhelming. I've actually had long conversations via facebook's chat area with people who once wouldn't have given me the time of day - and they started it!
In short to your points:
1. You can ignore anyone (They don't get a message if you ignore them).
2. You don't have to reply to anyone in any amount of time, though if they actually ask a question, it would be nice of you to respond within the next couple of days. We all are busy, hence snippets are good.
3. Does it matter? Again, go back to 1. If they really bother you, you can always send them a message along with the ignore. I know someone who has received a few of these messages - he is gay and the 'friend' refused to have anything to do with him because of it.
4. Don't search for the school. Go to your friends, look through their list of friends, and select from there. Or do as I've done - I think I've invited a handful of people and the rest found me =)
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