Collecting Friends/Social Networking

I ran across an interesting post from the Seeded Buzz blog networking site entitled, 356 Facebook Friends, Don't Know My Neighbor's Name. It appears that the full post has been removed, so I didn't read it. It did make me start thinking about my own list of friends on Facebook and the contrast between the online world and the actual world. I tend to favor the actual world I walk around in, because that's where true interaction happens. The world I walk around in is filled with reality and choices on how I see that reality, how I let it affect me. At best, the online world gets close to real when I'm using it to stay in touch with people that I've had in my life in the world that I walk around in every day.

I have a little less than 300 friends on Facebook. All but a handful of them are people that I've known from various times in my life, many are people I used to work with. One person requested me as a friend because he has the same last name and it turns out that we have a thing or two in common, such as a love of music. He also looks a bit like my relatives on my father's side of the family. A couple of people are on my friend list because they liked my comments on a mutual friend's page and then requested me.

There are times when Facebook can be a grand waste of time - I try to distance myself from that kind of involvement. I'm not a fan of the games and applications that find ways to access more information - and I don't see that changing. There are people who have nothing but updates from the game applications they play on their page..."John Q. Public just finished building a barn in Farmville", "John Q. Public just robbed a bank in Gangsterville"...Meh. Who cares? Not me. I did try one mob game that I kept getting requests to join with various friends and I think I lasted about a month with it. I dropped it because it just didn't appeal to me and I haven't looked back. To each his own...

I don't really talk to most of the people on my friend list, but there are a few that I interact with regularly. I like having contact with people who mean something to me from various points in my life. It's nice to know that I haven't been forgotten and letting someone know that I still think of them. I would much rather interact with anyone in person, but sometimes distance prevents that. Social networking is a bit like pen pals on steroids - no physical contact, merely sharing thoughts and pictures and not having to wait for a hand-written letter. It's a little bit sad that today's younger people may never experience the feeling of opening a hand written letter from someone who cares about them - indeed the very thought of such a thing may never cross their mind.

I generally don't request friends on Facebook unless I know them or know of them, so all but a few of my friends there are people who know me. I have no idea what the ratio of me requesting/them requesting is and it doesn't really matter. I could tell you where I know each Facebook friend from and I could share a story or two about them all, some would take a bit longer than others. I read something once that referred to Facebook as a "glorified photo sharing site" - I kind of disagree with that. For me at least, it's an easy way of staying in touch with people that have shared places and times in my life with me - and that means a lot to me. I also know the names of both neighbors on either side of me and a few others...