I am an advocate for building a community and developing friendships online for business development. But, when I hear that my son is “friending” everyone under the sun, including his older sister’s roommates and her friends of friends, it makes me wonder.
If we are not using Facebook for business, then why are we so obsessed with gaining new friends on Facebook?
My son told me he has 550 friends. “Five hundred and fifty friends,” I shouted, “you don’t know that many people. Come on. You need to be weary of who you friend on Facebook. There are lots of crazy people out there.”
“If you think this is bad, check out my sister’s site,” he said. “She has 650 friends.”
When I walked into the kitchen, my husband was on his iPad. “What are you doing?” I asked him.
“I’m looking for more friends on Facebook,” he said.
So, I ask you, how many friends do you have on Facebook and do you communicate with all of your friends?
If you switch the word “friend” with “acquaintance,” it all makes sense.
When I first started using facebook, I also friended everyone I could. It took me about 6 months to get over 1000 people. People with whom I might have never otherwise gotten to know as I have. At about 1,800 names. I stopped. I moved onto a business page (actually three business pages) and use my personal facebook page to ‘introduce’ the various projects I am working on and to direct friends to the appropriate page(s). It seems to be working very well for me.
But I am a mature, discerning adult who has ‘unfriended’ people when that has become necessary. I think that social media is amazing in the right hands and a danger in the wrong hands. Young people and even adults do need to be very careful with friending people who have been known to become inappropriate, even asking for money, and more. Just as parents need to monitor their children with other forms of media and internet accessed games, social media needs the same guidelines.