Monday, October 11, 2010

Face-off with Facebook

Now that I’ve touched on LinkedIn, let me state my opinion about it’s more social/informal counterpart, Facebook. Now we all know how successful and addictive it has become. I have been pleasantly surprised and amazed by the number of long lost fiends I have discovered due to Facebook. Some of them after more than 20 years.

But there is the proverbial “other side of the coin” that we must always look at. The one that give pedophiles yet another tool (a very effective one at that) to exploit unwary children, a place where Spammers can go to town, an avenue to easily and unintentionally expose your deep dark secrets to millions of strangers and an addictive tool which can become the most effective time waster since the introduction of news bulletins at national TV networks.

But more than anything what I cannot comprehend is why in the world some folks want to invite total strangers into their “friend list”. Is it because they think it might be “cool” to have a “friend list” that exceeds the 500 or even the 1000 mark? I of course reject these invites. But I know some don’t.

Any idea why?

6 comments:

Sujeewa Kokawala said...

Recently discovered that majority of my frnds have been totally unknown to me otherwise.

It is yet another virtual vs real debate. Fact is they really are frnds.

And you face the debacle of defining a frnd now. In fact I am trying to leave the burden with you.

Frnd or not they add me mostly because of my poetry work. They are no total strangers, since I see them commenting and liking [lucky we don't have a dislike] my poems [:)], and my poetic responses to other ppl. I receive most frnd requests when I publish some work. And they all have well behaved and kept in good touch.

Now I have to tell you a piece of opinion which I plan to put in my never finished article on F/B. I entered F/B as it looked to be a way to reach a broader audience for a "village folk" [in terms of web presence] like me. The community I reached has filled more than half of my active frnds today. As a matter of very highly understanding fact, we never planned to meet ever.

BTW, recently I had a bull in china shop. As a guy with my same surname joined my frnd list [I approve all ppl now - kinda acting like a pigheaded celebrity huh] And he took no time in dropping a frnd request to all the ladies in my frnd list. I got queries by frnds on the matter and in no time I dropped the bugger.

Maybe he's in frustration, but that is a job which I wouldn't take up even if I die in hunger.:)

Adios and await for my article within our life time.

Sujeewa Kokawala said...

This may be interesting.

ඔබ මුහුණු පොත් ලෝලී ආබාධයෙන් පෙලෙන්නේද?

santhoshi said...

You are the coolest if you have minmum five hundred friends. I have three hundred, kidding hahah.
I am trying to see who really keeps in touch and taking the others off. also put privacy settings with photos and stuff! i feel facebook is a nuisance sometimes!

Anonymous said...

finding long lost pals is definitely major up-side of FB. But I for one feel you cant have a meaningful relationship with more than 150 ppl on social media. a point to ponder i guess :)

Anonymous said...

New generation is in a virtual world. They spend their whole day with computers with very little time for real human interaction. So, I'm not surprised why people tend to find more and more "virtual" fiends through social networks. So they just accept any invitation to bring their friend count up.

- Dilan R

Bimmy said...

Sujeewa : Guy with your surname? Are you sure he was not related to you? I mean it is not exactly a common name like Chang or Smith now is it? BTW, I'd love to comment on your poetry, but I am too shallow to understand most of those.

Santhoshi : Yeah, I know what you mean. FB privacy settings are way too complicated for my liking.

Kokila : I think most people only really keep regular touch with just a small percentage of those in their friend-lists. And I am guilty of that myself.

Dilan : You make a valid point. Never thought of it like that.