Okie dokie. Here goes #1. Please respond to this as a thread, don't start a new entry.
This prompt is due by 1pm on Monday, March 30.
The Prompt
Take a look at your network of Facebook friends. How many friends do you have? What networks are they in? How many friends do your friends have (a lot? a little?) Is there such a thing as too many friends?
Ever notice weird friend connections in the "friends you have in common" section? Does that give you a "its a small world after all" feeling? Does it give you a different feeling?
Is your network of Facebook friends inherently better than any one else's network? For example, is your network better than my mom's network that only contains 12 other people? Why or why not?
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I have 394 friends. I recently did some serious spring cleaning, and unfriended well over 100 people. A lot of them were people from high school that I had barely been friends with then, and didn't have any reason to follow their lives, nor to have them follow mine. A good rule of thumb was: if I hadn't checked their page since friending them, and hadn't talked to them in two years, it was probably alright to unfriend them. There were also people that I had met once, while out partying, that I didn't have any friends in common with, and I just didn't see a reason to keep up correspondence with these people. The people that I'm not close to, who send me application invites daily had to go as well. Lastly, there were the kids from high school, in the class under me, who friended me when they graduated. Many of them I couldn't remember ever talking to in high school. I tend to avoid unfriending people I've had falling outs with, because I never see anger as the final result of an issue, and who knows-- maybe we'll make up and get back to being friends. Do I want to have to refriend them then?
I'm still pruning a bit, here and there, as I come across acquaintances that disappeared from my realm of interest. It seems especially reasonable now that facebook has turned its homepage into one like twitter's. I don't want to keep seeing tweets from people I don't care about. I'm probably only on facebook once or twice a day, at most. I want my homepage to show me interesting and useful updates from my closest friends. I'm actually surprised that I even still have 400 friends at this point. I've never had a number goal or limit, but for now, 350-400 seems very reasonable to me. This seems like a fairly decent average among my friends, as well, although I found the two extremes at 29, for my aunt and uncle's joint account, and 1,132 for a friend from high school who went to Western Illinois. I feel like 1,132 friends might be too many, but then again, people's definition of friend isn't necessarily the same as others', and likewise, isn't necessarily the same as their definition of "facebook friends." I don't think that my network of facebook friends is better or worse than anyone else's. I think that each person's friends are related to what they want to get out of facebook, and that one person's agenda isn't better or worse than any one else's.*
I love the "friends you have in common" section. It's really fun to meet someone new and find out that they also know people in an entirely different context than you. I also have the application, "friend wheel," that lists all of your friends around the edge of a circle, and draws a line connecting each of your friends who are friends with other friends. According to this application, I have only two friends with no other friends in common with me. In addition, within these 392 friends, there are 5,528 links between these friends. I wonder how this compares to other people?
*The exception is: I've heard that companies will hire people to friend as many people in their network as possible, so that if and when there is a prospective applicant, they can go to this person to find out if there are compromising pictures or posts of them. I understand that this is legal and practical, but I don't like it.
Actually I just found someone with over 2,000 friends. That's extreme.
I have 463 friends. About half my friends are from high school and the other half are from college. I feel like the average amongst my friends is to have about 450 facebook friends. But there are some with way less and way more depending how much of a facebook person they are. I don't think there is such a thing as too many facebook friends. If a person likes to friend almost everyone they meet then they can. I personally wouldn't do that. I feel like the fewer friends you have the easier it is to stay connected to them. Instead of getting news feeds from someone you only met once you will get news about closer friends. I probably should go through and get rid of some of my facebook friends that I don't really consider to be friends anymore.
I like looking at the friends in common box because usually I always have a couple people in common. I feel like it gives something to talk about next time I see the person: "how do you know this person...". It defiantly gives me the "its a small world" feeling when I see that two people I never expected to meet somehow know each other. It usually results in good stories about how they met at a party or were best friends with the same person.
I never really pay attention to networks. To me they were just a part of creating a facebook. The only time I really payed attention to networks was in high school when my high school had two networks for some reason that I could never understand. I barley ever look at someone's network unless I am trying to figure out what school they go to. If a person belongs to a network with only 12 people compared to one with thousands of people I would not think twice about it.
I never really thought about how many friends I have.There are 267 people that have connected themselves to me, but i would consider all of them my close friends. A few of them are my relatives. I m So very glad that my parents are not on this site. It s not that I have anything to hide but I think it would be a little strange.
Everyone that is my friend I have met and spoken to in person, but one. I saw this guy on campus and thought he was cute.I was pleased to find out he was in my network so i requested him as a friend. for some reason he said yes to my request. I thought it was strange because I normally not say yes to people unless I know them or know of them.
There are a few people from High school but not that many, the rest are old friends from childhood and U of I students that I had class mate or good friends with. I would only consider about 5% of those people friends I talk to out side of facebook. the rest if it weren't for facebook I would never speak to them and them to me.
I think if you have over 400 friends you more them likely don't call all those people your friends. some people just have friends to see who has the most. I think that's point less.
*Disclaimer* I am at work and bored, where I usually do my most meaningful thinking, and now writing my prompt…that and I’m lazy, especially during spring break. Please ignore the crappy grammar and dull-witted humor. You have been warned.
So I decided to take a look at my network of friends seeing how it's required for the prompt.
First, I had to transcend the limitations of my brain and riffle through the new Facebook layout for a while (See my 1st journal for opinions on the new layout!). It turns out I have 414 friends, soon to be 415 because I totally just added a friend of mine I met last month... I suppose the number is around average for a 4th year senior. I have friends who are social whores and have 2,000+ friends (you know who you are.), while I have other friends who, let's say, are socially challenged and would rather play video games on their computer than go out on a friday night (you also know who you are.). Back to the point, I would say I am about average when it comes to the number of friends I have.
About half of them are from high school, while the other half are people I have met while at college. I am usually pretty picky about whom I friend. I like to at least be able to say I’ve had a conversation with them and would be willing to hang out in a social situation before I friend someone. Although, exceptions do occur; there is sometimes the occasional Facebook stalking of a friend of a friend who you ‘need’ to meet, or that insistent high school friend, who you knew, but didn’t want to know, and now they know you are on Facebook, and they want to still know you, but you don’t want to know you know them or even knew them! (Sorry again, work. bored. you get the idea)
I don’t believe there is a thing as too many or too few friends on Facebook. Facebook is a great tool for people to stay in touch with each other without the commitment of synchronous time. If a person wants to stay in touch with only 12 people, that is fine. If a person wants to stay in touch with 12,798,353,432 friends, that’s fine too…although not recommended. I do believe, however, that the number of friends one has is a status symbol to some people and used as an ‘e-peen’ enhancer (don’t ask). Thanks to the new format, people don’t use wall posts anymore for this same reason.
You know, I have noticed those weird friend connections that often occur between other friends and myself. Most of the time it gives me the “it’s a small world after all” feeling, although there are also times where I have that “oh shit, this is going to cause drama” feeling as well. I will leave it at that for now.
Is your network of Facebook friends inherently better than anyone else’s network? I do not believe so, a network of friends is a network of friends, regardless of with whom or how big/small it is. Although, as far as the afore mentioned e-peen goes, I have more friends than Kristin. Take it as you want. I know I will.
P.S. the blog is not adjusted for daylight savings time yet incase you want that fixed for turn in times.
Looking at my friends list I seem to have a woefully inadequate number of friends in comparison to others. I have a mere 186 friends on facebook. For me that still seems like a relatively high number as I'm not one for just adding people that I've only met sparingly. Most of the people on my facebook are friends that I constantly keep in touch with or are people that I would hang out with. Looking at that number I'm still shocked at how many people that I know. It seems like an absurdly high number to me. But looking just among my friends, most have 400-500 people. I think the reason for my lack of popularity on facebook may also relate to my lack of usage of the thing. Before this class, I hardly used facebook at all. I went there to check up on friends and look at pictures but as for messages and such, I almost never messaged friends or posted on people walls. If I wanted to talk to people I would mostly send them an im so we can hold a conversation or call them. The people you may know feature of facebook seems a little odd to me. It seems to just pick out people that your friends know and have a similar network to you. I'm not too sure how it works, but a large majority of people on there I have never heard of before. One reason for that may be because I went to a large high school so while a lot of people I know may have had contact with a person, I may have never met them in my life
As for better networks I feel that there really isn't any way to judge facebook networks in a way that you can definitely say that one network is better. People use facebook for different things. Some use it as social measuring tool while others use it just to keep contact with close friends and family. There's no way to say that one network is better than the other
I have 196 friends on Facebook and this is after heavy editing of who I included on the list. The majority of these friends are in the Chicago network, then the UIllinois network. The majority of my friends have more internet friends than me because they accept all friend requests. I focus more on practicality. If someone requests me who does not even say "hi" to me in passing, I do not see the reason to be affiliated with them on the internet. I like to think I can talk to any of my Facebook friends face-to-face for at least five minutes. In regard to the worth of a network, I do not see any difference between them beside size.
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