Once again, my husband, Jason Strate (@StrateSQL), is heading up a new Meme 15. This time, the topic is facebook. How do we balance it with all the possible people we could be friends with on there?
I have a lot of past high school classmates, friends, family, and co-workers (mostly past ones). My rule was always, “If I don’t know them in real life, I’m not going to be friends with them on facebook.” I have pictures of my kids, and details of my life that I don’t think the general public needs to see.
My struggle has been in answering the question, “What about the SQL Community?” They are an awesomely fun group of people I get to see a couple of times a year. Most people in that community seem to use twitter the most (and/or have their twitter feeds pushed to facebook). I have been told by people that I “should” be friends with some of the key people in the SQL Community on facebook. At the same time, I feel like not everyone really needs to see my whole life (especially if I barely know them). There are plenty of people I am friends with in real life, or talk to often enough on twitter, that it feels like I know them. Some of them I feel know me well enough that I don’t care if they see my facebook.
The problem is that I have gotten friend requests from people who I have had minimal twitter interaction with, and don’t really know. That’s where I struggle. I don’t want to be rude, so I go ahead and accept the friend requests. I go back and forth on whether or not to go back and “de-friend” some people that I barely know or talk to. That feels even more rude than had I just ignored their request in the first place.
What I do like about having so many SQL people on my list of fb friends is that I can tag them in photos from PASS events, and they can tag me. It also seems to help build relationships with people that I only see a few times a year. I enjoy that benefit. That also holds true for some of my husband’s co-workers that I am facebook friends with.
I am very interested to see what other people have to say on the topic. I may be changing the way I use facebook some after reading the roundup (or not, we’ll see)…
Mar 15, 2012 @ 11:20:29
I say to let it build naturally.dont force them into this or that. but as it becomes available, allow it. if im linked to you on FB, i dont really spend all that much time investigating your goings on anyway. mainly because im busy living my own life. I will link to people if i know them, or if they can prove that we knew each other. often i’ll ignore them after that, just like in real life.
Mar 15, 2012 @ 12:04:44
That may be true. Thanks for the input.