One flaw, as I see it, is that it creates a false sense of who is your peer. The other flaw, as I see it, is that it is easy to think you are closer friends than you are.
The way I understand it (from watching "The Social Network" movie), Facebook was meant originally for college students to network/socialize together. As college students graduated, they took it with them, and eventually high schoolers were allowed in and then as we know - the entire world.
Facebook friends are not necessarily our peers, nor close friends.
Through a series of experiences I have come to the following conclusions.
1. I should not comment on posts of people that are 20 years younger than me unless they truly are a close friend in person.
2. I want to be on my children's friend lists so I can watch what is going on, but that only makes me an adult observer, not necessarily their friend. Keep quiet. If I see something that concerns me, talk to them in person.
3. I will wait for people younger than me (again those that are 20 years younger) to initiate conversation online with me, I will not initiate with them. I will not intrude, other than to say Happy Birthday.
4. While social networks create this huge playground where everyone can play, not everyone can or should play with each other. Respect each other's space.
It's a new world, live and learn.
I think that you are spot on about the fact that through facebook or other social networking sites you feel that your friendships are better than they are. I moved house (300 miles away from my home town)last January and decided six months ago to have a cull anyone who I had had no contact within a six month period either through facebook, texting or by phone or snail mail got the chop. Now i maybe a few hundred friends light but everyoen in my list is either some one that I have a genuine friendship with ie know in the real world and care about or people who i have met through my blog as sort of proffesional friendship that they can ask me about something and visa versa.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing serena x
I'm uncomfortable with Facebook too. I limit it to people I know, friends and family. Some folks like to wax eloquent on all sorts of subjects. I just use it to keep in touch with my cousins. They are great, so glad I found them again.
ReplyDeleteFacebook can be a scary place. We have very tight controls in place to keep out unwanted guests, prying eyes or anyone we don’t know. Everyone on our friend list is a genuine friend. Great post!
ReplyDeleteSmart guidelines.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Facebook is quite challenging when it comes to managing friends. Though I friend many people on blogspot or pinterest site, when it comes to facebook, I only add and accept invites from people that I know in real life. If I went to school when them or worked with them at one point then I add them as a friend and set up categories within the friendship so that when looking at updates I'll know that this post was from a person I worked with or currently work with or went to school with or go to church with.... I honestly don't see facebook as a place to add strangers especially when a good deal of personal information is added to the site by either setting up your personal page or by comments made to your posts by family and very close friends. Facebook scares me!!
ReplyDelete